Dame Evans was on the whole a well-meaning woman, but like some other well-meaning persons, very intolerable to live with. Housekeeping was her idol. She cared for nothing in the world but scouring and cleaning, cooking and washing, spinning, sewing, and knitting. In her mind a house was not a place to live and be happy in, but something whose use was to be kept clean; to have the bricks scoured, the wood-work waxed and rubbed and polished endlessly, the windows brightened, and the flies driven out. Comfort and shelter were secondary objects. Clothes were made to be mended and kept clean; and as to books, they had, according to Dame Margery, "no use in the 'varsal world but to waste people's precious time and keep them from their duties." Dame Margery was a steady keeper at home on week-days, and a regular church-goer on Sundays; she never went to revels or merry-makings, or allowed her family to do so. And she would have been both surprised and indignant if any one had told her that she was as much wedded to the things of this world as her neighbor the goldsmith's wife, whose gay gowns and frequent parties were the talk of the whole street; and that it was as frivolous and belittling to set her heart upon pewter tankards and fine linen as upon flounces and lace. It did not occur to her to think that drawers and cupboards, kitchen floors and parlor windows, trenchers and napkins, were as much earthly and transitory in their nature as fairs and revels. Simon Evans was a master-workman and well to do in the world, but Dame Margery saved every penny and every candle-end as carefully as she had done when he was living upon the wages of a journeyman. She allowed her family no better food, and had no more to give away. If people were poor, it was their own fault. "She" was not poor—why could not they do as she had done? The question, "Who maketh thee to differ?" was one which did not occur to her. It may be guessed that Winifred and her aunt did not suit each other very well. Dame Evans declared that the girl had been utterly spoiled by poor sister Magdalen, who was nothing better than a dreamer herself, for all her gentle blood, and congratulated the child on at last getting into hands that would give her some training and teach her something useful. The training consisted in toiling from morning till night to clean what had just been washed and to wash what was already clean; in making garments which when done were too good to be worn, and in being reminded every day and all day long of her own deficiencies, and of the goodness of her uncle and aunt in taking upon themselves such a burden.