Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/62

46 public concerts, and as a teacher of music he had a large circle of pupils from the first families. All his professional work was, however, with him but means to an end. Every moment of leisure that he could snatch by day from his musical pursuits, and every hour that he could subtract from his sleep at night, were devoted to those astronomical studies to which, by the strong workings of natural genius, he was impelled with a force he had no power or wish to resist.

From the quietude of her retired home, and the monotonous music of her mother's spinning-wheel and her own knitting needles, Caroline was plunged at once into a life of ceaseless activity. She had a purpose quite as strong as her brother's, and that was—to be in all things possible, and some that seemed impossible, his devoted helper. It is said of her, that for ten years she persevered by night and day, "singing when she was told to sing, copying when she was told to copy, lending a hand in the workshop (where her brother manufactured his telescopes), and taking her full share in all the stirring and exciting changes by which the musician ultimately became the king's astronomer and a celebrity."

Besides all these unusual duties, she kept her brother's house, and had a full share of trouble with inefficient and wasteful servants, whose extravagance shocked her thrifty habits and harassed her temper. Yet she never says anything of her own exertions or privations in that arduous time of toil,