Poor Aunt Mary! She made me feel mean and depressed at the time, but I understand it all now. She had inherited the instincts of economy, and the calamities which had overtaken her father, and reduced his family from affluence to poverty, had taught her wisdom. From these circumstances she had long ago learned that only thrift, calculation, and contrivance, can prevent the most respectable family from declining to that poverty which leads to the workhouse. She knew that money meant much to poor folk, and that the only way to make money in her condition of life was to make the most of her resources, keep whatever she could scrape from the proceeds of industry; and, acting on those principles, she was an enemy to all imprudence and improvidence, waste and extravagance. As she could not invoke the law to hinder young couples from the folly of early marriage, she could disown them, even though they were her nearest relatives, and suffer them, unassisted, to bear the punishment due to the unwise. For mothers in her position, she knew of no other course, and necessity left no choice. The scraps of complaint which I heard enabled me to interpret her thoughts and actions towards me henceforth. When I saw the bony, narrow face, dark with vexations, and the way she jerked a tankard or a plate from the table, or flapped vigorously her duster, I knew that I was at the bottom of her trouble. Her husband had died three years before, leaving her with the care of four sons. As her sons approached manhood, her responsibility increased. So far she had done admirably. Edward, the eldest, was a railway official at Morley, where in time his abilities must necessarily secure him promotion. Her second son, Moses, had graduated with honours at Carnarvon College, and was now the teacher of a National School at Brynford. Such a distinguished scholar, and one consumingly zealous in all that belonged to his profession, could not fail to have a brilliant future. John, the third son, was a lad of eighteen, on the eve of entering the railway service, as a clerk. David, the youngest, a lad of thirteen, was destined by his mother to assist her with the farm. Before I left Ffynnon Beuno for school, I had abundant opportunities to inform myself of the low estimate formed of me by the neighbours. My aunt was so honest and candid that she admitted them fully into her confidence respecting me, and these sympathetic gossips, while they drank the home-brewed ale, expressed freely to one another their opinions of me, regardless whose ears might hear.