Grand’ther kept his eye on Caroline; but his eye had no disturbing effect.  She had no perception of his character; was fearless with him, and went contrary to all his ideas, and he liked her for it.  She even reproved him for keeping such a long face.  Her sewing, which was very bad, tried his patience so, that if it had not been for her mother, who was a poor widow, he would have given up the task of teaching her the trade.  She said she knew she couldn’t learn it; what was the use of trying?  She meant to go West, and thought she might make a good home-missionary, as she did, for she married a poor young man, who had forsaken the trade of a cooper, to study for the ministry, and was helped off to Ohio by the Society of Home Missions.  She came to see me in Surrey ten years afterward, a gaunt, hollow-eyed woman, of forbidding manners, and an implacable faith in no rewards or punishments this side of the grave.

I suffered so from the cold that December that I informed mother of the fact by letter.  She wrote back: 

“My child, have courage.  One of these days you will feel a tender pity, when you think of your mother’s girlhood.  You are learning how she lived at your age.  I trembled at the prosperity of your opening life, and believed it best for you to have a period of contrast.  I thought you would, by and by, understand me better than I do myself; for you are not like me, Cassy, you are like your father.  You shall never go back to Barmouth, unless you wish it.  Dear Cassy, do you pray any?  I send you some new petticoats, and a shawl.  Does Mercy warm the bed for you?  Your affectionate Mother.”

I dressed and undressed in Aunt Mercy’s room, which was under the roof, with benumbed fingers.  My hair was like the coat of a cow in frosty weather; it was so frowzy, and so divided against itself, that when I tried to comb it, it streamed out like the tail of a comet.  Aunt Mercy discovered that I was afflicted with chilblains, and had a good cry over them, telling me, at the same moment, that my French slippers were the cause.  We had but one fire in the house, except the fire in the shop, which was allowed to go down at sunset.  Sometimes I found a remaining warmth in the goose, which had been left in the ashes, and borrowed it for my stiffened fingers.  I did not get thoroughly warm all day, for the fire in the middle room, made of green wood, was continually in the process of being stifled with a greener stick, as the others kindled.  The school-room was warm; but I had a back seat by a window, where my feet were iced by a current, and my head exposed to a draught.  In January I had so bad an ague that I was confined at home a week.  But I grew fast in spite of all my discomforts.  Aunt Mercy took the tucks out of my skirts, and I burst out where there were no tucks.  I assumed a womanly shape.  Stiff as my hands were, and purple as were my arms, I could see that they were plump and well shaped.  I had lost the meagerness of childhood and began to feel a new and delightful affluence.  What an appetite I had, too!