All through her letters we see that, though generally cheerful, and often even merry, there were bitter moments in this devoted woman’s life, moments when all the affection with which she was surrounded failed to fill the measure of her content.  The old wounds would still sometimes bleed and the heart ache for home joys all her own.  Writing to Jane Smith in 1852, she says:  “I chide myself that I am not happier than I am, surrounded by so many blessings, but there are times when I feel as though the sun of earthly bliss had set for me.  I know not what would have become of me but for Angelina’s children.  They have strewed my solitary path with flowers, and gemmed my sky with stars.  My heart has brooded o’er sorrows untold, until life has seemed an awful blank, humanity a cheat, and myself an outcast.  Then have come the soft accents of my children’s voices, and they have spoken to me so lovingly, that I have turned from my bitter thoughts and have said:  ‘Forgive thy poor, weak servant, Lord.’”

All through Sarah’s life, children had a great attraction for her.  Even amid her cares and doubts at Eagleswood she writes:  “Surrounded by all these dear young people, and drinking in from their exuberance, and scarcely living my own life, I cannot but be cheerful.”

And describing an evening in the school parlor, when she joined in the Virginia reel, she says:  “The children make one feel young if we will only be children with them.  I owe them so much that I shall try to be cheerful to the end of my days.”

And in this school, where boys and girls of all ages and all temperaments mingled, “Aunt Sai” was the great comforter and counsellor.  Her inexhaustible tenderness and mother-love blessed all who came near her and soothed all who had a heartache.  The weak and erring found in her a frank but pitying rebuker; the earnest and good, a kind friend and wise helper, and a child never feared to go to her either to ask a favor or to confess a fault.

At Eagleswood the Welds kept up as far as practicable their frugal habits, though, soon after their establishment, they all modified their Graham diet so far as to take meat once a day.  Sarah’s economy, especially in trifles, was remarkable, almost as much so as the untiring, almost painful industry of herself and Mrs. Weld.  A penny was never knowingly wasted, a minute never willingly lost.  Among other thrifty devices, she generally wrote to her friends on the backs of circulars, on blank pages of notes she received, on almost any clean scrap, in fact.  Angelina often remonstrated with her, but to no avail.

“It gives me a few more pennies for my love purse, and my friends won’t mind,” she would say.