From time to time she uttered a few broken words; and once, with a piteous look, said, “I am very thirsty; but her weakness was too great to allow of more than an occasional sentence. It was truly distressing to gaze upon her entirely changed countenance, and exhausted frame, and to feel the sad conviction that one was looking on her for the last time!
At the former part of her illness, Mrs. Opie’s natural warmth of affection, and lively interest in those whom she loved, seemed to induce her still to cling to life; and while she said that on looking back and contemplating the past, the time seemed long in the review, yet she intimated it would be sweet to live a little longer, if permitted to do so, “were it not still better to depart.” But, as the end approached, there appeared to be a gradual giving up her hold on the present life, and the few words she uttered shewed that her thoughts were on heavenly things.
On the night of the 30th she said to her cousin “all is peace;” and afterwards, when Mr. S. Gurney was present, she gave it as her dying testimony “all is mercy.”
During the last five days of her life her sufferings were protracted and severe. Hers were “the groans and pains and dying strife” of a mortal conflict. But her faith and patience failed not; and at length the Angel messenger came, and she was released!
At midnight, on Friday the 2nd of December, 1853, Amelia Opie breathed her last.
| [46] | He died soon after in Tennessee, while on a mission on behalf of the slave. |
| [47] | The preparation to which she referred had reference to some small directions she had dictated to her maid a few evenings before, to be communicated to her executor; at the close of which she said, “I should have liked to give little remembrances to all my friends, and have taken leave of them, but I have done the best I can.” |