Am so sorry to hear you are still sick, and wish I could help you. Am still more sorry to hear you are "dreading" the summer; but I do not wonder at it, for on a farm the labor required by the women in the house must be incessant.... I cannot take the burden off your shoulders; but perhaps a word of sympathy from another, and something from her experience, may enable you to face the difficulties.... My experience has been that when anticipating a hard time, if I only accept it, and make up my mind that it _has_ to be my part, half the burden is taken off, if I determine to go through with it all, giving myself up to that work and thinking of nothing beyond in the mean time. Take all the rest I can get, instead of trying to do something else too. Rest will do you more good than company or books, when you are so used up with real hard work. Women all try to attend to too much outside of their households, for the sake of company and variety; do you not think so? Now, just take things as quietly as you can this summer, and feel that in your home duties you have more than you can do, and look forward to the time when summer will be over and you will have less care. After her death, the lady wrote:-- "I sent my letter to her home by a messenger who reported that he understood at the door, as he handed it to the person who answered the bell, that Miss Ellis was dead. I hoped that he was mistaken, but your letter confirmed it. I knew she was very feeble. She wrote me some two weeks before Christmas, saying she was very weak; but I did not think for one moment that she was in danger, or I would have hurried to see her. I shall miss her greatly, and her dear letters to me, which I prized so highly; and you, who saw more of her than I could possibly, will feel her loss greatly. I believe there are few persons capable of entering so entirely into sympathy with others who needed it as she was, and of giving such consolation; at least, it has not been my good fortune to meet many such. I will be glad to receive the memorial of which you speak. I shall be very glad if your minister would write me on the subject of joining the church, as I was depending on Miss Ellis to guide me in the matter, which she was ready to do one year or more ago." In 1884 Miss Ellis received the following letter from a young man, Mr. A. J. Beach, who had been one of her discouragements, because, after some correspondence, she had ceased to hear from him. Mr. Beach was usher in the State Penitentiary at Joliet, Ill.