free gifts, to be won by prayer....  And now Mr. P. has come up-stairs rolled up in your afghan, and we have decided to go to both Newark and Brooklyn to-morrow, so I know I ought to go to bed.  You must take this letter as a great proof of my love to you, though it does not say much, for I am bewildered by the scenes through which I am passing, and hardly fit therefore to write.  What I do not say I truly feel, real, deep, constant sympathy with you in your sorrow and loneliness.  May God bless you in it.

[1] Dorset is situated in Bennington county, about sixty miles from Troy and twenty-five miles from Rutland.  Its eastern portion lies in a deep-cut valley along the western slope of the Green Mountain range, on the line of the Bennington and Rutland railroad.  Its western part—­the valley in which Mrs. Prentiss passed her summers—­is separated from East Dorset by Mt.  Aeolus, Owl’s Head, and a succession of maple-crested hills, all belonging to the Taconic system of rocks, which contains the rich marble, slate, and limestone quarries of Western Vermont.  In the north this range sweeps round toward the Equinox range, enclosing the beautiful and fertile upland region called The Hollow.  Dorset belonged to the so-called New Hampshire Grants, and was organised into a township shortly before the Revolutionary War.  Its first settlers were largely from Connecticut and Massachusetts.  They were a hardy, intelligent, liberty-loving race, and impressed upon the town a moral and religious character, which remains to this day.

[2] Mrs. Arthur Bronson, of New York.  A life of Mrs. Prentiss would scarcely be complete without a grateful mention of this devoted friend and true Christian lady.  She was the centre of a wide family circle, to all of whose members, both young and old, she was greatly endeared by the beauty and excellence of her character.  She died shortly after Mrs. Prentiss.

[3] While supposing that her brothers had been burnt out and had, perhaps, lost everything, she wrote to her husband with characteristic generosity:  “If they did not kill themselves working at the fire, they will kill themselves trying to get on their feet again.  Every cent I have I think should be given them.  My father’s church and everything associated with my youth, gone forever!  I can’t think of anything else.”

[4] Mrs. McCurdy died at her home in New York in December, 1876.  A few sentences from a brief address at the funeral by her old pastor will not be here out of place.  “Her natural character was one of the loveliest I have ever known.  Its leading traits were as simple and clear as daylight, while its cheering effect upon those who came under its influence was like that of sunshine.  She was not only very happy herself—­enjoying life to the last in her home and her friends—­but she was gifted with a disposition and power to make others happy such as falls to the lot of only a select few of the race.  Her domestic and church ties