Christopher had deep convictions, but was very shy of expressing them; Elisabeth's convictions were not particularly deep, but such as they were, all the world was welcome to them as far as she was concerned.
As the children grew older, one thing used much to puzzle and perplex Christopher.

Elisabeth did not seem to care about being good nearly as much as he cared: he was always trying to do right, and she only tried when she thought about it; nevertheless, when she did give her attention to the matter, she had much more comforting and beautiful thoughts than he had, which appeared rather hard.

He was not yet old enough to know that this difference between them arose from no unequal division of divine favour, but was simply and solely a question of temperament.

But though he did not understand, he did not complain; for he had been brought up under the shadow of the Osierfield Works, and in the fear and love of the Farringdons; and Elisabeth, whatever her shortcomings, was a princess of the blood.
Christopher was a day-boy at the Grammar School at Silverhampton, a fine old town some three miles to the north of Sedgehill; and there and back he walked every day, wet or fine, and there he learned to be a scholar and a gentleman, and sundry other important things.
"Do you hear that noise ?" said Elisabeth, one afternoon in the holidays, when she was twelve and Christopher fifteen; "that's Mrs.Bateson's pig being killed." "Hear it ?--rather," replied Christopher, standing still in the wood to listen.
"Let's go and see it," Elisabeth suggested.
Christopher looked shocked.

"Well, you are a horrid girl! Nothing would induce me to go, or to let you go either; but I'm surprised at your being so horrid as to wish for such a thing." "It isn't really horridness," Elisabeth explained meekly; "it is interest.