During the day there was more or less talk about the Bible-reading and I begged her to give it up.  We finally agreed that the girls should drive over to Mrs. Reed’s and ask her to take charge of it.  They did so; but at Mrs. R.’s suggestion it was decided not to give up the meeting, but to convert it, if needful, into a little service of prayer and praise.  This arrangement seemed to please her.  Although feeling very weak, she did not appear at all depressed and was alive to everything that was going on in the room.  The girls having written to a friend who was to visit us the next week, she asked if they had mentioned her illness.  They both replied no—­for each supposed the other had done it.  “Then (said she) you had better add a postscript, telling her that I lie at the point of death.”

Wednesday, Aug. 7th.—­A beautiful day.  She got up, put on a dressing-gown, and sat most of the day in the easy-chair, or rather the sea-chair, given us by my dear friend, Mr. Howland, when we went to Europe in 1858.  She looked very lovely and we all enjoyed sitting and talking with her in her chamber.  The girls arranged her hair to please their own taste, and then told her how very charming she was!  She liked to be petted by them; and they were never so happy as in petting and “fussing” about her.  She spent an hour or two in looking over a package of old Agriculturists, that had belonged to her brother-in-law, Prof.  Hopkins, of Williams College.  She delighted in such reading, and nothing curious and interesting, or suggestive, escaped her notice.  She called my attention to an article on raising tomatoes, and cut it out for me; and also cut out many other articles for her own use.

Towards night she dressed herself and came down to tea.  She remained in the parlor, talking with me and the boys, and reading the paper, until the girls returned from the Wednesday evening meeting.  Something had occurred to excite their mirth, and they came home in such a “gale” that she playfully rebuked them for being so light-minded.  But at the same time she couldn’t help joining in their mirth.  In truth, she was quite as much a girl as either of them; and her laugh was as merry.

Thursday, Aug. 8th.—­She seemed to feel much better this morning.  Before getting up we talked about her Bible-reading, and she asked me various questions concerning the passage that was to be its theme, namely, John xv. 27.  She referred particularly to our Lord’s sayings, at the beginning of the sixteenth chapter, on the subject of persecution, and told me how very strange and impressive they seemed to her, coming, as they did, in the midst of His last conversation with His disciples—­a conversation so full of divine tenderness and love.  This was almost the last of innumerable and never-to-be-forgotten talks which we had had together, during more than a third of a century, upon passages of Holy Scripture.