While life is fleeing fast;
And sadly sigh that I am left
The last, the last, the last.

Farewell, then, thou my little world
My home upon the tree,
A sweet retreat, a quiet home
Thou mayst no longer be;
The willow trees stand weeping nigh,
The sky is overcast,
The autumn winds moan sadly by,
And say, the last--the last!

[10] "Dear Lizzy is in her little school. Her pupils love her dearly.
She will have about thirty in the summer."--_Letter of Mrs. Payson,
March 28, 1839_.

[11] Three years later Elizabeth thus referred to this period in the
life of her friend:--"During the time in which she was seeking the
Saviour with all her heart, I was much with her and had an opportunity
to see every variety of feeling as she daily set the whole before
me. The affection thus acquired is, I believe, never lost. If I live
forever, I shall not lose the impressions which I then received--the
deep anxiety I felt lest she should finally come short of salvation, and
then the happiness of having her lost in contemplation of the character
of Him whom she had so often declared it impossible to love."

[12] Old friends of her father also became much interested in her. Among
them was Simon Greenleaf, the eminent writer on the law of evidence, and
Judge Story's successor at Harvard. On removing to Cambridge, in 1833,