Had the seed of revolt been in her, from his own revolt against his father?
Would it presently bear some ugly fruit in her sons?
From a drawer in the table he took a little sheaf of folded sheets, and read again the last letter that had come from her; read it not without grim mutterings and oblique little jerks of the narrow old head, yet with quick tender glows melting the sternness.
"You must not think I have ever regretted my choice, though every day of my life I have sorrowed at your decision not to see me so long as I stayed by my husband.

How many times I have prayed God to remind you that I took him for better or worse, till death should us part." This made him mutter.
"Clayton has never in his life failed of kindness and gentleness to me"-- so ran the letter--"and he has always provided for us as well as a man of his _uncommon talents_ could." Here the old man sniffed in fine contempt.
"All last winter he had quite a class to teach singing in the evening and three day-scholars for the violin, one of whom paid him in hams.

Another offered to pay either in money or a beautiful portrait of me in pastel.
We needed money, but Clayton chose the portrait as a surprise to me.

At times he seems unpractical, but now he has started out in _business_ again--" There were bitter shakings of the head here.

Business! Standing in a buggy at street-corners, jauntily urging a crowd to buy the magic grease-eradicator, toothache remedy, meretricious jewelry, what not! first playing a fiddle and rollicking out some ribald song to fetch them.
Business indeed! A pretty business! "The boys are delighted with the Bibles you sent and learn a verse each day.