She was fond of music, and could play the piano well; and of course she had had the best instruction she could get from city teachers only twenty miles away from our home town.

Young as she was--about seventeen when she began to teach, I think--she got a few beginners right away, and in two years she had worked up quite a class, meanwhile keeping on with her own studies, herself.
"They might have carried the thing through, maybe," continued Arkwright, "and never _apparently_ known that the 'pity' existed, if it hadn't been for some ugly rumors that suddenly arose attacking the Judge's honesty in an old matter that somebody raked up.

That was too much.

Under this last straw their courage broke utterly.

Alice dismissed every pupil, sold almost all their remaining goods--they had lots of quite valuable heirlooms; I suspect that's where your Lowestoft teapot came in--and with the money thus gained they left town.