“Before this illness came on she had with her own hands arranged all her Christmas gifts and ordered her Christmas cards, received by many of her friends on that sad Christmas Day. There were also some packets addressed by herself of mementoes to friends, all the more precious for this evidence of thoughtful foresight.
“On Saturday, November 10th, friends came to lunch, and Miss Buss was well enough to enjoy their society, and show particular interest in the children, finding games and other amusement for them.
“On this day also she had a visit from an old pupil—and colleague—who brought her little baby-girl, asking permission to call her Frances Mary, a request which greatly touched Miss Buss. Constantly during her illness she spoke of her ‘little namesake baby,’ who once, at the dear invalid’s special wish, was brought to see her.
“On November 11th Miss Buss attended the short morning service at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, almost next door to Myra Lodge.
“On Monday evening she was able to be with the girls at No. 89, enjoying, as she always did, to see them happy in playing games.
“The next day two old pupils took tea with her, and for the Wednesday a luncheon-party of some of the clergy and workers of Holy Trinity had been arranged. But this, by the doctor’s orders, had to be postponed.”
On the Thursday before the end there was a return of consciousness for some hours, with full recognition of her nephew, the Rev. Charles Caron Buss, the “Charlie boy” of olden days, whom she now questioned tenderly about his little curly-headed Kenneth, her latest delight. She also recognized and talked with Mrs. Alfred Buss. Then came her “own boy,” the Rev. Francis F. Buss, and she was able to follow the Service for the Visitation of the Sick, and to join once more in the Veni Creator, and then, for the last time, in the words of the Collect, so often on her lips, to seek from the “Fountain of all Wisdom those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot, ask”—a prayer so meet for one who had walked from earliest days so humbly with her God—a prayer so soon to be answered by the revelation of “the things prepared for them that love.”
With this last self-surrender she let go her hold on earth, sinking again into a state of coma that grew deeper and deeper till it merged into the sleep of death. It lasted for three whole days longer, during which her family and a few intimate friends were unremitting in their visits, though there was nothing to be done but take a sad look at the dear face, and go away with the terrible sense of change, as they thought of that still form, those closed eyes, those unanswering lips from which came now only that slow laboured breathing, and remembered their friend as they had always known her before, so alert, so alive to every touch, so quick of response to the faintest appeal. The only break in this long stillness came in the hymns which from time to time were sung softly by the watchers at the bedside, in the hope that those familiar sounds might penetrate, beneath the silence.
All Sunday night the family remained in expectation—almost in hope—of the release which seemed so near, waiting as they that watch for the morning. Christmas Eve dawned, and, as the day advanced to high noon, the heavy breathing grew more and more quiet, till at length came perfect peace, and the watchers knew that their beloved had passed from death to life.
“For fifty years with dauntless heart