As to forms, Mrs. Margaret had her own, and she was
very attentive to them, but she had very small opportunity of public
worship, as there was no church within some miles of the Tower. In the
meantime, whilst the old lady went plodding on in her own quiet way,
teaching the little girl all she knew herself, Mr. Dymock was planning
great things by way of instruction for Tamar. He was to teach her to
read her native language, as he called the Hebrew, and to give her
various accomplishments, for he had dipped into innumerable branches,
not only of the sciences, but of the arts; and as he happened to have
met with a mind in Tamar which was as rapid as his own, though far more
plodding and persevering, the style of teaching which he gave her,
produced far richer fruit than could possibly have been expected. But as
Rome was not built in a day, neither must it be supposed that good Mrs.
Margaret had not many a laborious, if not weary hour before her part of
the care necessary to the well-rearing of the child, was so complete
that the worthy woman might sit down and expect a small return; for, as
she was wont to say, the child could not be made, for years after she
could hold a needle, to understand that the threads should not be pulled
as tight in darning as in hem stitch, and this, she would say, was
unaccountable, considering how docile the child was in other matters;
and, what was worst of all, was this,--that the little girl, who was as
wild and fleet, when set at liberty, as a gazelle of the mountains,
added not unseldom to the necessity of darning, until Mrs.
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