"When he came to dine with us it generally happened that before he departed his mother was as much out of humor with him as he was at the beefsteaks being hard, and because I did not know how to clean knives and forks with brick-dust." And again: "When he honored the humble table with his presence, poor I got many a whipping for being awkward at supplying the place of footman or waiter."
It is said that his love of luxury was shown in the specimens of English goods and English tailoring he brought back with him from England, while all that William brought back was a copy of Locke "On the Human Understanding," which took all his private means.
When her father came home to stay he helped her some, and yet, poor man, he did it under difficulties. The parents had never agreed upon the subject of her education. She says:
"My father wished to give me something like a polished education, but my mother was particularly determined that it should be a rough but at the same time a useful one; and nothing further she thought was necessary but to send me two or three months to a seamstress to be taught to make household linen. Having added this accomplishment to my former ingenuities, I never afterward could find leisure for thinking of any thing but to contrive and make for the family, in all imaginable forms, whatever was wanting; and thus I learned to make bags and sword-knots long before I knew how to make caps and furbelows. . . . My mother would not consent to my being taught French, and my brother Dietrich was even denied a dancing-master, because she would not permit my learning along with him, though the entrance had been paid for us both; so all my father could do for me was to indulge me (and please himself) sometimes with a short lesson on the violin, when my mother was either in good-humor or out of the way. Though I have often felt myself exceedingly at a loss for the want of those few accomplishments of which I was thus, by an erroneous though well-meant opinion of my mother, deprived, I could not help thinking but that she had cause for wishing me not to know more than was necessary for being useful in the family; for it was her certain belief that my brother William would have returned to his country, and my eldest brother not have looked so high, if they had had a little less learning. . . . But sometimes I found it scarcely possible to get through with the work required, and felt very unhappy that no time at all was left for improving myself in music or fancy-work, in which I had an opportunity of receiving some instruction from an ingenious young woman whose parents lived in the same house with us. But the time wanted for spending a few hours together could only be obtained by our meeting at daybreak, because by the time of the family's rising, at seven, I was obliged to be at my daily business. Though I had neither time nor means for producing any thing immediately, either for show or use, I was content with keeping samples of all possible patterns in needlework, beads, bugles, horsehair, etc., for I could not help feeling troubled sometimes about my future destiny; yet I could not bear the idea of being turned into an abigail or housemaid, and thought that with the above and such like acquirements, and with a little notion of music, I might obtain a place as governess in some family where the want of a knowledge of French would be no objection."
As year by year passed by, William's attachment to England grew stronger. But the poor father, who was failing in strength, became
