Little did I think, when she loaded me down that last day with all I could carry, then ran down to the parlor to show me some choice articles there which she knew would give me pleasure—­little did I think that I should see her again no more!  Not a day passed after leaving her that she was not an inspiration to me.  While painting a wayside flower I would think, “Mrs. Prentiss would like this”—­or, “In the fall I must show that to Mrs. Prentiss.”  Even in my dreams she was present with me, and one morning, only a little while before she passed from us, I waked with a heavy burden upon my spirits—­for it seemed to me as if she were gone.  The impression was so strong that I spoke of it at the time, and for days could not throw it off.  But at last, saying to myself, “Oh, it is only a dream,” I answered her little note, making, of course, no reference to my strange feelings in regard to her.  Her letter, by a singular mistake, is dated “Kauinfels, October 10, 1878,” nearly two months after she had fallen asleep.  How just like her is this passage in it:  “I wish you could leave your little flock, and take some rest with us.  It would do you good, I am sure.  Is it impossible? you do look so tired.”  My letter in reply must have been one of the very last received by her.  In it I spoke of having just re-read Stepping Heavenward and Aunt Jane’s Hero, and of having enjoyed them almost as much as at the first.  This was, perhaps, one reason why she had been so constantly in my thoughts.  When the news came that she had left us, I was at first greatly shocked and grieved—­for I felt that I had lost no ordinary friend—­but when I considered how complete her life had been in all that makes life noble and beautiful, and how meet it was that, having borne the burden and heat of the day, she should now rest from her labors, it seemed selfish to give way to sorrow and not rather to rejoice that she had gone to be with Christ.

Scores of such grateful testimonies as this might be given.  To all who knew and loved her well, Mrs. Prentiss was “an inspiration.”  They delighted to talk about her to each other and even to strangers.  They repeated her bright and pithy sayings.  They associated her with favorite characters in the books they read.  The very thought of her wrought upon them with gracious and cheering influence.  An extract from a letter of one of her old and dearest friends, written to her husband after her death, will illustrate this: 

On the very morning of her departure I had been conversing with my physician about her.  He spoke in admiration of her published works, and I tried to give him a description of her personal characteristics.  The night before, in my hours of sleeplessness, I recounted the names of friends who I thought had been most instrumental in moulding my character, and Mrs. Prentiss led the list.  How little did I dream that already her feet had safely touched “the shining shore”!  In all the three and thirty years of our acquaintance