This “love purse” was well named.  Into it were cast all her small economies:  a car-fare when she walked instead of riding; a few pennies saved by taking a simpler lunch than she had planned, when in New York on business; the ten cents difference in the quality of a cap, ribbon, or a handkerchief,—­all these savings were dropped into the love purse, to be drawn out again to buy a new book for some friend too poor to get it herself; to subscribe to a paper for another; to purchase some little gift for a sick child, or a young girl trying to keep up a neat appearance.  It was a pair of cuffs to one, mittens or slippers of her own knitting to another, a collar or a ribbon to a third.  All through the letters written during the last twenty years of her life, the references to such little gifts are innumerable, and show that her generosity was only equalled by her thoughtfulness, and only limited by her means.  Nothing was spent unnecessarily, in the strictest sense of the word, on herself; not a dollar of her narrow income laid by.  All went for kindly or charitable objects, and was gladly given without a single selfish twinge.

It is scarcely necessary to say that few schools have ever been established upon such a basis of conscientiousness and love, and with such adaptability in its conductors as that at Eagleswood; few have ever held before the pupils so high a moral standard, or urged them on to such noble purposes in life.  Children entered there spoiled by indulgence, selfish, uncontrolled, sometimes vicious.  Their teachers studied them carefully; confidence was gained, weaknesses sounded, elevation measured.  Very slowly often, and with infinite patience and perseverance, but successfully in nearly every case, these children were redeemed.  The idle became industrious, the selfish considerate, the disobedient and wayward repentant and gentle.  Sometimes the fruits of all this labor and forbearance did not show themselves immediately, and in a few instances the seed sown did not ripen until the boy or girl had left school and mingled with the world.  Then the contrast between the common, every-day aims they encountered, and the teachings of their Eagleswood mentors, was forced upon them.  Forgotten lessons of truth and honesty and purity were remembered, and the wavering resolve was stayed and strengthened; worldly expediency gave way before the magnanimous purpose, cringing subserviency before independent manliness.  The letters of affection, gratitude, and appreciation of what had been done to make true men and women of them, which were received by the Welds, in many cases, years after they had parted from the writers, were treasured as their most precious souvenirs, and quite reconciled them to the trials through which such results were reached.