Happily for her, in her country home, she did not live
to see the strife brought into her own life.
She had taught her children as much as she could. Her husband was
willing, but his old mother disapproved of learning in that station
of life, and aided and abetted her eldest grandson in his resistance,
so that though she had died when he was only eleven or twelve years
old, Jephthah could do no more than just make out the meaning of a
printed sentence, whereas Steadfast and Patience could both read
easily, and did read whatever came in their way, though that was only
a broadside ballad now and then besides their mother's Bible and
Prayer-book, and one or two little black books.
The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and
Wells had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after
their mother died, and even Jeph was sad and subdued.
Since that sad day when the good mother had blessed them for the last
time, there had been little time for anything. Patience had to be
the busy little housewife, and what she would have done without
Steadfast she could not tell.
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