'No,' said I.
'You hate it?' She asked; 'you understand its vileness, and hate it?'
'Yes, I do now, from the bottom of my heart.'
'Will you not promise me that until you die, you will, regardless of self, use every effort in your power against it?'
'I will, in all solemness and truth.'
She was satisfied, and said no more, for she never wasted words, and I recognized this as her legacy to me. The next day she was taken ill. I immediately sent for Mrs. Simmons, who thought she would be able to take her home with her; but before she arrived, I saw it would not be possible. Her only hope of recovery was in remaining where she was.
Mrs. Simmons came, and Miss Sunderland, notwithstanding our careful preparations, was so overcome with emotion at meeting her old friend, that for some time she could scarcely speak. After this warmth of feeling had subsided, she looked up in her face with a pleasant smile, and said:
'I was well named, after all. I have entered into the joy of my Lord.'
The next day she had an earnest talk with her friend on the present state of the country. Her faith had returned through intuition, but the grasp of her intellect was weakened by disease, and she could not see clearly the grounds of it. Mrs. Simmons, though she had, like the rest of us, seasons of doubt, was in a very hopeful mood that morning, hopeful for our leading men, for the common people, and for the tendency of events; and she explained the reasons for her belief that the enormities of that period were no new crime, but a remnant of the old not to be eradicated at once, any more than it is possible for an individual to turn from great baseness to real goodness without some backslidings, even after the most unmistakable of conversions. Miss Sunderland was satisfied, the future again became clear to her, and after that she seemed to lose interest in the details of affairs. Her thoughts and conversation were filled with heaven and a regenerated earth.
We clung to hope as long as possible, but she herself saw the end of the disease from the beginning. She talked with us, and with the soldiers who were permitted to see her, as long as she was able. Wise words she spoke, and words ever to be remembered; but at last weakness overcame her, and her life was but a succession of gasps. One morning, after being unconscious for many hours, she opened her eyes wide and looked at us. She glanced from one to the other, and then, fixing her gaze on Mrs. Simmons, said: