Miss Chauncey died early in the winter after we left Deephaven, and one day when I was visiting Kate in Boston Mr. Lorimer came to see us, and told us about her.

It seems that after much persuasion she was induced to go to spend the winter with a neighbor, her house having become uninhabitable, and she was, beside, too feeble to live alone.  But her fondness for her old home was too strong, and one day she stole away from the people who took care of her, and crept in through the cellar, where she had to wade through half-frozen water, and then went up stairs, where she seated herself at a front window and called joyfully to the people who went by, asking them to come in to see her, as she had got home again.  After this she was very ill, and one day, when she was half delirious, they missed her, and found her at last sitting on her hall stairway, which she was too feeble to climb.  She lived but a short time afterwards, and in her last days her mind seemed perfectly clear.  She said over and over again how good God had always been to her, and she was gentle, and unwilling to be a trouble to those who had the care of her.

Mr. Lorimer spoke of her simple goodness, and told us that though she had no other sense of time, and hardly knew if it were summer or winter, she was always sure when Sunday came, and always came to church when he preached at East Parish, her greatest pleasure seeming to be to give money, if there was a contribution.  “She may be a lesson to us,” added the old minister, reverently; “for, though bewildered in mind, bereft of riches and friends and all that makes this world dear to many of us, she was still steadfast in her simple faith, and was never heard to complain of any of the burdens which God had given her.”

Last Days in Deephaven

When the summer was ended it was no sorrow to us, for we were even more fond of Deephaven in the glorious autumn weather than we had ever been before.  Mr. Lancaster was abroad longer than he had intended to be at first, and it was late in the season before we left.  We were both ready to postpone going back to town as late as possible; but at last it was time for my friend to re-establish the Boston housekeeping, and to take up the city life again.  I must admit we half dreaded it:  we were surprised to find how little we cared for it, and how well one can get on without many things which are thought indispensable.

For the last fortnight we were in the house a good deal, because the weather was wet and dreary.  At one time there was a magnificent storm, and we went every day along the shore in the wind and rain for a mile or two to see the furious great breakers come plunging in against the rocks.  I never had seen such a wild, stormy sea as that; the rage of it was awful, and the whole harbor was white with foam.  The wind had blown northeast steadily for days, and it seemed to me that the sea never could be quiet and smooth and blue again, with soft white clouds sailing