Her old habit of early rising had of course to be abandoned.  But the hours of the early morning were well spent, especially in meditation and intercessory prayer.  As an example of the things that occupied her mind, we may quote words spoken to her maid as she entered the room:  “I awoke very early this morning, and have been very happy and busily engaged.  My thoughts have been much occupied with three things all so different, yet each needing God’s help to-day.  The first is the Queen’s visit to Aberdeen to inaugurate the Prince Consort’s memorial; the second is Mr. M.’s prayer meeting in London in a hall that had been a dancing-saloon in his parish; and (referring to a young man formerly in her service, but then studying for the ministry) the third is John’s College examination.”

At the end of 1863 the duchess expressed a strong wish that the ministerial conference at Huntly Lodge should be resumed.  A meeting was held on the 13th of the following January.  As she heard what had transpired she remarked, “I liked the meeting, and had only one thing to find fault with:  some of the gentlemen prayed for me as if I was something, and I am nothing.  I must speak about that before the next meeting.”  She invited all to meet again on the 10th of the following month.  She little thought that they would indeed meet on that day, but only to lay her remains to rest.  The 10th of February was to be her funeral day.

The fatal illness was of very short duration, and gave her little opportunity of thought.  She was sorrowing over her inability to think when the words were given to her:  “I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”  “Yes, that’s it,” was her reply; “In Thy strong arms I lay me down.”  She was quoting from the following hymn, which she frequently repeated to her friends, and which she said more than any other expressed the present state of her feelings:—­

     “I only enter on the rest,
        Obtained by labour done;
      I only claim the victory
        By Him so dearly won.

      And, Lord, I seek a holy rest,
        A victory over sin;
      I seek that Thou alone should’st reign
        O’er all, without, within.

      In quietness then, and confidence,
        Saviour, my strength shall be,
      And ‘take me, for I cannot come,’
        Is still my cry to Thee.

      In Thy strong hand I lay me down,
        So shall the work be done;
      For who can work so wondrously
        As an Almighty One?

      Work on, then, Lord, till on my soul
        Eternal Light shall break;
      And in Thy likeness perfected,
        I ‘satisfied’ shall wake.”

On the evening of the 29th of January the duchess attempted to ask for something.  Miss Sandilands repeated the words, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.”  “Yes,” she answered.  This emphatic token of assent to a truth which was essentially her own by appropriation was the last attempt she made to speak.  She fell asleep at half-past seven on the Sabbath evening, the 31st of January, 1864.  She went to the land where time is no more, in her seventieth year, just reaching the allotted term of life, as she had certainly in no ordinary degree performed its allotted work.