Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/172

160 describing, under the title of Candidus, an ideal Christian, in whom everyone recognised a portrait of Wilberforce. It was written in the midst of much suffering from biliousness, and likewise of constant watching the declining health of Mary, that eldest sister whose energy and ability had been the mainstay of the family, ever since, at twenty years old, she had undertaken the school, which had not only founded the fortunes of all, supported her father in his old age, but had sent a sound and wholesome influence into many a home around. She died on Easter Sunday, 1813.

Hannah, to whom she had been another mother, wrote to Lady Olivia Sparrow, "I thought it something blessed to die on Easter Sunday, to descend to the grave on the day on which Jesus triumphed over it. It is pleasant to see death without its terrors." Such a grief as this, and thus borne, left no permanent depression. The sisters turned their attention to their ordinary life, and Hannah's letter to Lady Olivia to thank her for a present of Rokeby, began delightfully:—

"A little girl having wearied me very much the other day with 'I want this, I want that, I want the other,' to put an end to her importunity, I said, 'You want everything in the world; I suppose you will want the moon next.' She took the hint, and