Margaret had not many a laborious, if not weary hour before her part of
the care necessary to the well-rearing of the child, was so complete
that the worthy woman might sit down and expect a small return; for, as
she was wont to say, the child could not be made, for years after she
could hold a needle, to understand that the threads should not be pulled
as tight in darning as in hem stitch, and this, she would say, was
unaccountable, considering how docile the child was in other matters;
and, what was worst of all, was this,--that the little girl, who was as
wild and fleet, when set at liberty, as a gazelle of the mountains,
added not unseldom to the necessity of darning, until Mrs. Margaret
bethought herself of a homespun dress in which Tamar was permitted to
run and career during all hours of recreation in the morning, provided
she would sit quietly with the old lady in an afternoon, dressed like a
pretty miss, in the venerable silks and muslins which were cut down for
her use when no longer capable of being worn by Mrs. Margaret. By this
arrangement Tamar gained health during one part of the day, and a due
and proper behaviour at another; and, as her attachment to Mrs. Margaret
continued to grow with her growth, many and sweet to memory in
after-life were the hours she spent in childhood, seated on a stool at
the lady's feet, whilst she received lessons of needlework, and heard
the many tales which the old lady had to relate. Mrs. Margaret having
led a life without adventures, had made up their deficiency by being a
most graphic recorder of the histories of others; Scheherazade herself
was not a more amusing story-teller; and if the Arabian Princess had
recourse to genii, talismans, and monsters, to adorn her narratives,
neither was Mrs. Dymock without her marvellous apparatus; for she had
her ghosts, her good people, her dwarfs, and dreadful visions of second
sight, wherewith to embellish her histories. There was a piety too, a
reference in all she said to the pleasure and will of a reconciled God,
which added great charms to her narratives, and rendered them peculiarly