"I trust you will come home ready to _begin_ the work of life in earnest. When you look forward and consider that you must depend on your own efforts for subsistence, that you have a gift of mind for the use of which you are accountable to your Maker, and that the person with one talent is equally responsible with him who has ten, you will see that nothing short of physical inability can excuse you from beginning at once the work of self-education. All that can be done for you is nothing, all the advantages with which you may be surrounded are as nothing, if you do not set yourself to a conscientious improvement of all. I care little what path you follow as to external life, if you only follow it upon the basis of right principle, which shall produce in you a manly, disinterested regard to the accomplishment of all the good you may have it in your power to perform." A letter from England informed Mrs. Ware of the death of an excellent kinswoman, who may be remembered as "Cousin Bessie," the wife of George Lovell. And she wrote of it to Emma, then in New York, who had been her fellow-traveller in England, and whose own health was gently but surely declining. "_Greenhill Cottage, December 18, 1846._ ... Dear Bessie's pure spirit passed away in peace, the 22d of November. Her mind remained perfectly clear to the last moment, calm and cheerful. Hers was a sweet spirit, and I love to remember the intimate intercourse I had with it in times past, for there was more in her soul than appeared to the casual observer. Her departure has added one more attraction to that spiritual state in which I hope to renew the interchange of kind affection and holy thought. How beautifully is it arranged for us, that, as we approach nearer and nearer to the exchange of worlds ourselves, our interest in that to which we are going should be so increased by the removal of so many loved ones before us.