She had been as a mere child the most dutiful of daughters. She was the most devoted and unselfish of wives and mothers. Yet by strangers all her merits were not quickly seen. Her warm heart was hidden beneath cold and reserved manners. Outsiders were astonished at the extraordinary degree of affection that her children felt for her. Some of this coldness of manner, and all the hidden warmth of heart were inherited from her by her famous son. She had had but a small chance of getting much book-learning, yet she took a strong interest in her husband’s studies and pursuits. Her son said that she possessed remarkable sagacity and no small readiness in contrivance. It was not, however, by inventiveness or by originality that she was distinguished. In those qualities her husband was strong. She was strong where he was weak. If he had every sense but common sense, she had common sense in a high degree. She had with it an unusual strength of character—a strength that made itself none the less felt because it was quiet. “We must not forget,” wrote one of her sons to his brother, when the death of her youngest child was looked for, and they were all dreading the terrible blank that would arise, “we must not forget that mother is not an ordinary woman—her powers of self-control and conformity to existing circumstances are unusually great.” She was not wanting in honest ambition. She did not, indeed, look for any high position for her sons. She smiled incredulously when one of her boys told her that the day would come when she should ride in his carriage. But she was resolved that her children should not sink through poverty out of that middle class into which they were born. She was most anxious that they should have the advantages of that education which had never fallen to her lot. It was her doing that her husband left trade, for which he was but ill-fitted, and started a school. In the step that he thus took she saw the best means of getting their own children taught. She was unwearying in her efforts to add to her husband’s scanty income, and most rigid in her economy. She longed to provide for him and for her children that freedom of action which is only enjoyed by those who have freedom from debt. Her eldest son has thus recorded his recollections of her during the terrible year 1800, when he was but a child of eight years:—