She had always thought much of Christmas, always remembered her friends' birthdays. Her skilful fingers and untiring industry made the slender means go a long way in devising innumerable tasteful presents on these days for a large circle of friends. She loved children, and loved to make them happy, and her little friends were always remembered. This year, a day or two before Christmas, when so weak that only by the closest attention could the feeble, broken utterance be understood, she directed Christmas gifts, prepared long before, sent to all her friends. To one whom she knew needed it, went "Daily Strength for Daily Needs;" to one, a teacher, the little "Seed Thoughts from Browning." "I thought it might help her in her work, tell her." Even her washerwoman and her little girl, and the postman,--"he has brought me a great many letters," she said,--were not forgotten. A friend took her a Christmas card sent by a little girl. Her feeble vision could barely discern the design. "Birds and flowers," she said; "what could be more beautiful? It cheers me so. Yet I hardly need that. I am very happy and cheerful. I feel that everything is right." Afterwards she spoke of the "Happy, happy Christmas-tide," saying, "We must try to make it bright for the young." To the last, her thoughts were of others. Having closed all her earthly affairs, she lay awaiting the end in great peace. Sunday, Dec. 27, 1885, in the evening of the peaceful day she always loved, just as her little clock was striking seven, she passed gently away in sleep. Well may we believe that hers was a joyful wakening into a bright New Year. Her funeral was attended in the Unitarian Church, December 30,--a service of rare beauty and appropriateness. A thoughtful friend had covered the Tract Table in the vestibule with moss, ferns, and flowers, among which were placed a few tracts. In the church, wreathed with Christmas evergreens, a large concourse of friends assembled. To the strains of the Beethoven Funeral March, the coffin, nearly concealed beneath emblematic palm branches and lilies, was borne by the brothers whose loving-kindness had brightened all the life now ended, to its resting-place beneath the pulpit, close to the front seat where, for so many years, Miss Ellis's familiar form had never been missing. The choir, composed of young friends of hers in the church, sang the first three verses of "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and Whittier's appropriate hymn, "Another hand is beckoning us."