CARPENTER. 105 



them on holiday occasions gather round her as 

 children gather round a loving mother. Their queer 

 quaint ways and sayings amused her, as much as 

 their wretched condition grieved her. For in her 

 was a fund of humorous perception which might 

 not have been guessed by those who saw her in her 

 graver aspects, and I think it helped her sometimes 

 on her toilsome way. She was so large-minded, too, 

 as to enjoy even innocent raillery directed against 

 herself; and to give up small details of management, 

 as when she deferred to my mother in the domestic 

 arrangement at Red Lodge. There was nothing little 

 about her, but much that was childlike, as with all 

 great natures. And her varied culture and early 

 experience in the tuition of young ladies kept her 

 mind open to general interests, and prevented her 

 devotion to the ' good cause/ as she called it, becoming 

 narrowed and bigoted. 



" Miss Carpenter was certainly exacting, and was 

 perhaps too ready to assume in others the strong 

 will and power of endurance which characterised her- 

 self. But the only thing which moved her to anger 

 was unreliability, the ready promise without the per- 

 formance. To those who really tried, however im- 

 perfectly, to help her, she was most lenient and most 

 grateful. 



" The quality which most impressed every one in 

 her countenance, voice, and manner, and in everything 

 she did, was intense earnestness. It was literally true 



