and the dustless rooms which proclaimed her constant industry. She made
salves and eyewaters, powders and confects, cordials and persico,
orangeflower water and cherry brandy, each in its due season, and all of
the best. She was wise, too, in herbs and simples. The villagers and
the farm labourers would rather any day have her advice upon their
ailments than that of Dr. Jackson of Purbrook, who never mixed a draught
under a silver crown. Over the whole countryside there was no woman
more deservedly respected and more esteemed both by those above her
and by those beneath.

Such were my parents as I remember them in my childhood. As to myself,
I shall let my story explain the growth of my own nature. My brothers
and my sister were all brownfaced, sturdy little country children, with
no very marked traits save a love of mischief controlled by the fear of
their father. These, with Martha the serving-maid, formed our whole
household during those boyish years when the pliant soul of the child is
hardening into the settled character of the man. How these influences
affected me I shall leave for a future sitting, and if I weary you by
recording them, you must remember that I am telling these things rather
for your profit than for your amusement; that it may assist you in your
journey through life to know how another has picked out the path before
you.



Chapter II


Of my going to school and of my coming thence.