But while carrying on business in the manner in which her sense of duty required it, Madame Meszlenyi's days were numbered. Never strong, the trials and exposure of the night of her last arrest had effected their work of ravage in her constitution. Had she been able to have succeeded the leisure and refreshment of the sea voyage by rest and care, the course of disease might have been arrested and her life spared for many years. But she felt that necessity was laid upon her for work, for immediate and constant work. And having undertaken any duty, she would perform it at whatever cost to herself. The requirements of her dressmaking business would often, in the absence of sufficient help, find this heroic and high-born lady burning the midnight oil, to herself finish a dress which had been promised by a certain time. The knowledge of her condition no doubt stimulated her exertion. She knew that her days were numbered; and she had an object to accomplish. She wished to leave behind her sufficient means to provide a good education for her little girls, so that they might thus be put into the way of earning their own livelihood as teachers. And although it was often represented to Madame Meszlenyi that in the event of her dying her children would be taken care of, the independence of her spirit would flash into her face while she declared that she only desired that her children should have the opportunity of working as she had done herself. As may, however, be imagined, the difficulties and trials of these Hungarian women were many. But, notwithstanding all discouragements, the growing feebleness of the moving spirit of all, the spark of life burning but dimly, the well-being of her children kept the flickering flame alive. But the finely-strung spirit was strained to the utmost. Friends were not wanting; but, like many another whose soul has been touched to its finest issues, Madame Meszlenyi could not endure the thought of either herself or her children being dependent on charity. Upon her physician saying that she must have rest and change apart from the scene of her labours, a lady, who had been her friend from the first, offered her an old family mansion. Other friends came to her with offers of money, and provided a fund for a period of rest. It went much against her inclination to accept help so willingly offered. She said with a flood of tears: "We did not come to this country counting upon sympathy, but to work, as we heard everybody here could do. Heretofore in no distressing circumstances have I lost my courage, nor have I lost it now. But this illness is the hand of God; to Him I now yield in accepting charity."