Page:The common reader.djvu/110

 able character, of majestic grandeur and beauty “beyond the ruin of time”. “She was very skilful in leases, and setting of lands and court keeping, ordering of stewards, and the like affairs.” The wealth which thus accrued she spent, not on marriage portions, but on generous and delightful pleasures, “out of an opinion that if she bred us with needy necessity it might chance to create in us sharking qualities”. Her eight sons and daughters were never beaten, but reasoned with, finely and gayly dressed, and allowed no conversation with servants, not because they are servants but because servants “are for the most part ill-bred as well as meanly born”. The daughters were taught the usual accomplishments “rather for formality than for benefit”, it being their mother’s opinion that character, happiness, and honesty were of greater value to a woman than fiddling and singing, or “the prating of several languages”.

Already Margaret was eager to take advantage of such indulgence to gratify certain tastes. Already she liked reading better than needlework, dressing and “inventing fashions” better than reading, and writing best of all. Sixteen paper books of no title, written in straggling letters, for the impetuosity of her thought always outdid the pace of her fingers, testify to the use she made of her mother’s liberality. The happiness of their home life had other results as well. They were a devoted family. Long after they were married, Margaret noted, these handsome brothers and sisters, with their well-proportioned bodies, their