If nothing should happen me, if my life should flow on tranquilly into the valley of peace that my fond fancy pictured, then I will keep this to laugh over, as the wild vagaries of an over-wrought, excited imagination.  But, if death should find me at my labor of love, you will know how irrevocably my heart has been given to you, and realize somewhat of the depths of that affection which my lips have never dared to frame.  Oh, my darling, had I been permitted to live, I would have worshipped you; and if God calls me, I will still hover around you, and be the first to welcome one I loved to Heaven.  All that you have been to the weary-hearted girl, you will never know.  Life seemed hopeless, but your affection has made it a dream of happiness.  I have wanted to tell you how deeply your image was graven on my heart; how one face that was dear to me haunted my sleeping and waking dreams.  I would have lived for you, and can die breathing a blessing for your future.

There is one other that I have cared for as a mother would the babe she carried in her bosom.  My patient, tender-eyed Ruth—­watch over her when I am gone.  Sometimes, when thinking of this hour, I have prayed that its bitterness might be averted.  Realizing the agony of parting, the cruel severing of the clinging tendrils of unselfish affection, I have shrunk from the trial.  But now I feel that my strength is sufficient, even unto the end.  Though I walk through the “valley of the shadow of death,” I do not fear, for I can behold the light that breaks beyond, “over the delectable mountains.”

My own Love!  Strive to meet me there.  Others have gone before—­the fond eyes that watched over my cradle, the mother who nursed me during the hours of helpless infancy, and he who sheltered and protected my early youth with tenderest care.  I shall know and love them again.  The thought makes me happy.

I have one last request to make.  During my years of loneliness, when I have met with so much to dishearten and discourage me in my efforts to earn an honest livelihood, I have learned to pity the struggling, self-supporting ones of my sex, as only those can pity and sympathize who have suffered from a similar cause.  I have often wished that I had means to provide a home, not for “fallen women,” but for those patient toilers who are breasting the cruel, overwhelming waves of adversity.  There are many such, thrown from loving homes upon the charities of a cold and selfish world.  It is my desire to benefit them, and, with this end in view, I would leave the money which has so lately come to me, to be expended in the erection of a home to shelter helpless and unprotected women, who are incapable of self-support, either wholly or in part.

This is no school-girl fancy, but a plan long matured, formed from experience and observation.  It is a sorrowful fact, that has come within my own knowledge, that more than