THE LAST YEARS 393 
Its earlier chapters are interwoven with Shady Hill 
and all its attractions. Need I say how much of the 
happiness of my personal life is owed to that delight- 
ful circle, where the men were so intelligent and so 
kindly, and the women so cultivated and sweet? 
Such were some of the brighter rays that lighted Mrs. 
Agassiz’s last years; but “ the ship was nigh unto the har- 
bor, and the pilgrim was reaching the city, and life was 
close unto its end.” Slowly the day was fading, yet the 
clouds that gathered at evening never shrouded, even 
though they dimmed, the rare and delightful qualities that 
had been hers since the morning of life. Through the late 
winter and the spring of 1907 her strength gradually 
failed, but in June she was able to go to Arlington Heights. 
Three weeks later, on June 27, the release came, and her 
spirit returned unto God who gave it. 
