Nor was Miriam herself a hypocrite when, mistress of Redbeck House, she began to establish her reputation and authority throughout dissenting Bartles.
Her instruction had been rigidly sectarian.

Whatever she studied was represented to her from the point of view of its relation to Christianity as her teachers understood it.

The Christian faith was alone of absolute significance; all else that the mind of man could contain was of more or less importance as more or less connected with that single interest.

To the time of her marriage, her outlook upon the world was incredibly restricted.

She had never read a book that would not pass her mother's censorship; she had never seen a work of art; she had never heard any but "sacred" music; she had never perused a journal; she had never been to an entertainment--unless the name could be given to a magic-lantern exhibition of views in Palestine, or the like.