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that troubled you � that on the great question of
Christ�s divinity you were by no means at rest � it
would simply appal him. The whole family have been reared
in the narrowest of circles. Mrs Conworth, dead some two or
three years ago, was her husband�s housekeeper before mar-
riage. She was �religious� and had one idea � duty � which in
her vocabularly meant daily immolation. This idea the daughter
has inherited, and now acts upon it. Only Englishwoman are
capable of this, and it�s at once touching and horrible. They
have Protestantized the Papish idea that it�s their duty to suf-
fer, they are timid, unresisting � or almost so � and invari-
ably believers � believers who think all questioning shocking
impiety. Their affection towards the members of their family
are deep and morbid � they submit to petty selfishnesses
and tyranny. I don�t say Sarah Conworth has this to en-
dure, though what else I have just written applies to her. She
is painfully diffident, speaks but little and that in a low, timid
voice. Her desire to oblige, to be kind and hospitable, makes
one uneasy � you would like to set her at rest, to see her
confident, cheerful � to hear her join freely in conversation.
Some few times when she has warmed up into it, she tal-
ked sense and womanly feeling. Once, in a talk on slavery,
when George took the rascally inferiority-of-the-negro-and-
what�s-to-be-done side, indulging in quiet, Boltonian, mas-
culine grinning at the girls natural, honest, sympathetic
convictions based in human feeling and abhorrence of injus-
tice, I delighted her and brought her out more than usual
by strong talk on the right side of the question. �There,
George!� said she. I hate to see a woman pooh-