In just a week, though her heart was breaking, Miss Anthony was obliged to return to Illinois to fill four or five engagements in places which threatened claims for damages if this were not done.  She hastened back to Leavenworth, reaching the bedside of her sister at midnight, April 20, and scarcely leaving it a moment until the end came, May 12.  Between herself and this sister, just nineteen months younger, beautiful in character and strong in affection, there ever had existed the closest sympathy.  For the last decade they had been separated only by a dooryard, they had shared each other’s every joy and sorrow, and the severing of these ties of over a half-century seemed more than she could endure.

She remained at Leavenworth,[92] trying to renew her strength and courage, until the last of June, when she returned to Rochester, taking with her the orphaned daughter Louise.  Many comforting letters and tokens of affection came to her during these months, among them a gift of $100 from Helen Potter, the famous impersonator.  Her imitations of Gough, Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, Anna Dickinson, Mrs. Stanton and even Miss Anthony herself were most remarkable.  During the Centennial they had become warm personal friends, and in giving the money she said:  “Now, this is not for any society or committee or cause, but for your very self.”

Mrs. Stanton wrote her:  “Do be careful, dear Susan, you can not stand what you once did.  I should feel desolate indeed with you gone.”  When the lecturing had commenced she again wrote:  “As I go dragging around in these despicable hotels, I think of you and often wish we had at least the little comfort of enduring it together.  When is your agony over?” Referring to a young woman speaker who was being spoiled by flattery, she said:  “We should be thankful, Susan, for the ridicule and abuse on which we have fed.”  To one who tried to make trouble between Miss Anthony and herself she sent this reply:  “Our friendship is of too long standing and has too deep roots to be easily shattered.  I think we have said worse things to each other, face to face, than we have ever said about each other.  Nothing that Susan could say or do could break my friendship with her; and I know nothing could uproot her affection for me.”  And to Miss Anthony she wrote:  “I send you letters from our children.  As the environments of the mother influence the child in prenatal life, and you were with me so much, there is no doubt you have had a part in making them what they are.  There are a depth and earnestness in these younger ones and a love for you that delight my heart.”  Such letters as these are scattered thickly through the correspondence of nearly fifty years, and while Miss Anthony seldom put her own feelings into words, her absolute loyalty and devotion to Mrs. Stanton during all the half-century bear their own testimony.

The talented contributor to the Philadelphia Sunday Republic, Annie McDowell, paid a beautiful tribute to Miss Anthony at this time, illustrating how much she was loved by women: