they themselves were. I gave one or two instances of the manner in
which they treated mother and each other, and asked how they could
expect the servants to behave in any other way when they had such
examples continually before them, and queried in which such conduct was
most culpable. Eliza always admits what I say to be true, but, as I
tell her, never profits by it.... Sister Mary is somewhat different;
she will not condemn herself.... She will acknowledge the sad state of
the family, but seems to think mother is altogether to blame. And dear
mother seems to resist all I say: she will neither acknowledge the
state of the family nor her own faults, and always is angry when I
speak to her.... Sometimes when I look back to the first years of my
religious life, and remember how unremittingly I labored with mother,
though in a very wrong spirit, being alienated from her and destitute
of the spirit of love and forbearance, my heart is very sore."

This unfortunate state of things prevailed until the children were
grown, and with more or less amelioration after that time. Sarah's
natural tenderness, and the sense of justice which, as she grew to
womanhood, was so conspicuous in Angelina, drew their mother nearer to
them than to her other children, though Thomas always wrote of her
affectionately and respectfully. She, however, with her rigid orthodox
beliefs, could never understand her "alien daughters," as she called
them; and she never ceased to wonder how such strange fledglings could
have come from her nest. It was only when they had proved by years of
self-sacrifice the earnestness of their peculiar views that she learned
to respect them; and, though they never succeeded in converting her
from her inherited opinions, she was towards the last years of her life
brought into something like affectionate sympathy with them.