Within doors and without, his mother laboured for their common good; and hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found no difference in her.
Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world.

Any old newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at with avidity.

The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurable kind, for her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxiety and dread; but it never faded in the least degree.

Then, and in stormy winter nights, when the wind blew loud and strong, the old expression came into her face, and she would be seized with a fit of trembling, like one who had an ague.

But Barnaby noted little of this; and putting a great constraint upon herself, she usually recovered her accustomed manner before the change had caught his observation.
Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble household.