cannot blot or cause to fade."

Life in Preston House with all its enchantments came to an end for
Margaret Preston with the passing of the noble and loving man who had
made her the priestess of that home shrine. The first two years after
his death she spent with her stepdaughter, Mrs. Allan, who lived near
the old home. Then she went to the home of Dr. George J. Preston, of
Baltimore, where she was the centre of the home and took great delight
in his children with their pretty "curly red heads." She never walked
again except to take a few steps with a crutch.

From 819 North Charles Street she wrote: "Here my large airy room
faces brick walls and housetops and when I sit at the library windows
I only see throngs of passers-by, all of whom are strangers to me."
Her life was beautiful and content, but she must often have longed for
the old friends and the "laureled avenues" and the "edges of the
glorious Goshen Pass lit with the wavering flames of the July
rhododendrons."

March 29, 1897, Margaret Preston died as she had wished when she
expressed her desire in her poem "Euthanasia," written in memory of a
friend who had passed away unconscious of illness or death:

With faces the dearest in sight,
With a kiss on the lips I love best,
To whisper a tender "Good-night"
And pass to my pillow of rest.

To kneel, all my service complete,
All duties accomplished--and then