Wider aims and weaker health had not put an end to Ruskin's connection with the Working Men's College, though he did not now teach a drawing-class regularly. He had, as he said, "the satisfaction of knowing that they had very good masters in Messrs. Lowes Dickinson, Jeffery and Cave Thomas," and his work was elsewhere. He was to have lectured there on December 19th, 1863; but he did not reach home until about Christmas; better than he had been; and ready to give the promised address on January 30th, 1864. Beside which he used to visit the place occasionally of an evening to take note of progress, and some of his pupils were now more directly under his care. It was from one of these visits to the College, on February 27th, that he returned, past midnight, and found his father waiting up for him, to read some letters he had written. Next morning the old man, close upon seventy-nine years of age, was struck with his last illness; and died on March 3rd. He was buried at Shirley Church, near Addington, in Surrey, not far from Croydon; and the legend on his tomb records: "He was an entirely honest merchant, and his memory is, to all who keep it, dear and helpful. His son, whom he loved to the uttermost, and taught to speak truth, says this of him." Mr. John James Ruskin, like many other of our successful merchants, had been an open-handed patron of art, and a cheerful giver, not only to needy friends and relatives, but also to various charities. For example, as a kind of personal tribute to Osborne Gordon, his son's tutor, he gave £5,000 toward the augmentation of poor Christ-Church livings. His son's open-handed way with dependants and servants was learned from the old merchant, who, unlike many hard-working money-makers, was always ready to give, though he could not bear to lose. In spite of which he left a considerable fortune behind him,--considerable when it is understood to be the earnings of his single-handed industry and steady sagacity in legitimate business, without indulgence in speculation. He left £120,000 with various other property, to his son. To his wife he left his house and £37,000, and a void which it seemed at first nothing could fill. For of late years the son had drifted out of their horizon, with ideas on religion and the ordering of life so very different from theirs; and had been much away from home--he sometimes said, selfishly, but not without the greatest of all excuses, necessity. And so the two old people had been brought closer than ever together; and she had lived entirely for her husband. But, as Browning said,--"Put a stick in anywhere, and she will run up it"--so the brave old lady did not faint under the blow, and fade away, but transferred her affections and interests to her son. Before his father's death the difference of feeling between them, arising out of the heretical economy, had been healed. Old Mr. Ruskin's will treated his son with all confidence in