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LETTERS OF LIFE.
"Don't let any one look sad," she would often say—"there should be none but cheerful faces in a sick-room"—and lovingly we tried to follow her wishes. Remembering her own words in her "Daily Counsellor"—
"Smile on the dying friend,"
we strove to repress our tears, that no signs of our "selfish grief" should "chain the glad spirit" of the "ascending saint."
After this period of quiet came a season of restlessness—a longing to go "somewhere"—she could not tell where. Then we used to lift her from her bed, and placing her in a large rocking-chair, draw her gently through into an adjoining chamber, where she would sit by the open window, sometimes for two or three hours, looking out upon the grass and trees. Then, if she felt able, I used to read her letters to her, and tell her of the friends who had called to inquire for her. We used to make the room bright with pictures and flowers, and the change seemed always to refresh her. Once or twice each day she was thus taken from her sick-room, and she was able to sit up every day but the one immediately preceding her death.