brilliant scholar, very quiet and retiring, and almost morbidly reserved. The few friends she made here, however, were life-long, and she corresponded with some of the Lenox schoolmates until her death. "She was a perfect dancer," says the schoolmate.

Treasured among Miss Ellis's papers were found some pages of a schoolgirl's album, marked, "At Mrs. Sedgwick's School, Lenox, Mass., March, 1852." It contains verses descriptive of each pupil, written apparently by Mrs. Sedgwick. The little pen-picture of the schoolgirl paints well the woman of later years.

Bright indeed looked Sallie's future in those days. A year or two more at school, then a return to the loved mother and the beautiful home, and a "coming out" into the brilliant world with all the advantages attending wealth and position. But the clouds were already gathering which in coming years were to darken for her in quick succession the sunshine of earthly prosperity. She was called home from school by the illness of her mother. The mother died, leaving Sallie the oldest daughter at home, to fill her place as best she might to five little brothers and sisters.

Her sister says: "Our dear mother's death was the turning-point in Sallie's life. She was so shrinking, sensitive, and tender by nature, no one could fully understand her but a mother who had watched the hidden beauties of her character expand from infancy to girlhood."

The mother's memory was fondly cherished, her loss deeply mourned, all Miss Ellis's life. Over the dying bed of the worn and weary woman of fifty smiled down the radiant face of the mother, painted when a young, blooming girl. Among Miss Ellis's papers was found a manuscript volume of eighty-one pages of selections, copied in her clear, firm handwriting, index of the spirit's strength. It is headed, "Crumbs of Comfort for the Afflicted." The selections are from the Bible, sermons, hymns, and poems,—all breathing of religious trust and help in grief,—a beautiful and touching collection. The first page reads,—

"Begun in Nov. 1870.

"These selections are made in memory of my dear mother, who was called away many years since, and through whose death I was led to think of a higher life,—the true life of the soul.

"'Oh, I believe there is no away; that no love, no life, goes ever from us; it goes as He went, that it may come again, deeper and closer and surer, and be with us always, even unto the end of the world' (Patience Strong's Outings)."

One of the selections is an anonymous poem, "The Strength of the Lonely." On one page Miss Ellis had written (signed "S. E."), "I can but believe that God allows a mother still to watch over and care for her family when he takes her from this world, and in our affliction that he draws us to himself, and to Jesus as our guide to him, through her spiritual influence, just as, while upon earth, he permitted her to be his instrument to lead and guide us in all that is good. All children too, even the youngest, are God's instruments for good, and their ministries cease not with their earthly life. The departed are with us everywhere, through our daily duties,—

"In the loneliest hour, in the crowd, they are nigh us."

A year or two after the mother's death Sallie joined the Unitarian Church, being baptized by Rev. A. A. Livermore, of whom she writes in a letter: "Rev. A. A. Livermore was settled here from the time I was fourteen to twenty-one, and he formed my religious character." Fitting indeed was it that he who has trained so many young men for the ministry should dedicate to God's service this young woman, also destined to be his minister to many souls. An old lady in the church remembers seeing Sallie go up to be baptized, leading a little brother by each hand, all the little children being baptized at the same time. To one of her nature, the vows then taken were a most sacred, real consecration of her whole self to God,—vows to be nobly fulfilled in the life.

Mr. Livermore writes of her:—

"During my pastorate of the Unitarian Church in Cincinnati, Mr. and Mrs. Rowland Ellis were valued parishioners of mine, and their children were all baptized by me. It was a lovely group of little folks, and the spirit of that consecration has gone largely through all their lives, and given them, I believe, the Christian flavor. They have, too, been very warmly united as a family, and in health and sickness, in life and death, they have borne strong testimony to the blessed anchorage of a positive religious faith.

"They were also diligent attendants on the Sunday school in the basement of the old church. Sallie's bright face and upright attitude was to be seen in her place as sure as the Sunday came.

"After I left Cincinnati I saw her but seldom, but on those occasions she always spoke of the earlier times in the church and the Sunday school with a warmth and glow of memory that showed that they had been real points of life to her mind and character. And especially after her deafness became a chastening hand laid upon her character, and family sorrows and bereavements followed in the train, it was plain that she found her religious trust the one thing needful."

Within another year business reverses swept away Mr. Ellis's entire fortune. As he had meantime married a lady who proved a most capable and devoted mother to the younger children, Sallie, released from domestic cares, felt that she ought to do something to assist her father. "She was so modest," says a friend, "I don't think it ever occurred to her that she could teach school. But she said there was one thing she knew she could do, and do well, and that was, to dance." So Miss Sallie became a dancing-teacher, having classes of children in their mothers' parlors.

Another friend (whose boys, now stalwart men in the church, were among Miss Ellis's pupils) says of her: "She was a lovely dancing-teacher. She not only taught the children to dance well, but she taught them such gentle, lovely manners. Indeed, the significant thing in Miss Ellis's life, to me, was her faithfulness. Whatever her hand found to do, she did, and did well. Because she had been so faithful at dancing-school, she was able to be so successful a teacher. Because, when taught sewing, she tried so hard to do her best, she became such a beautiful sewer, and was able to teach sewing;" for a sewing-class was another expedient of those days.

Her father moved to Chicago in 1851, where he resided three years. There Miss Ellis attended Mr. Shippen's church, taught a Sunday-school class, and had a class of newsboys evenings. After the return to Cincinnati, while Miss Ellis was at the sea-shore, she began to experience a painful roaring in the ears. Hearing, never quite perfect, was soon almost totally