From the moment they entered the family of Mr. Grafton, they were regarded as children, even the lambs of the flock.
They were both at that time young, and soon entered into the more intimate relation of husband and wife; identifying their own dearest interests, and making each other only subordinate to what seemed to them even more sacred,—their devotion to their master and mistress.
Dinah's mind was of a more elevated order than Paul's, her husband. If she had not been a princess in her own country, she belonged to those upon whose souls God has stamped the patent of nobility.
Naturally proud, she was docile to the instructions of her excellent mistress; and her high and imperious spirit was soon subdued to the gentle influences of domestic love, and to the purifying and elevating spirit of Christianity.
Her mistress taught her to read. The Bible was her favorite book; and she became wise in that best wisdom of the heart, which is found in an intimate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Her character, under the burning sun of Africa, would have been intolerable; but it was tempered to a soft moonlight radiance, by the shading of Christianity.
Though her imperious spirit at first rebelled against slavery, there was no toil, no fatigue, no menial service, however humble, which she would not have sought for those she loved. Love elevated every toil, and gave it, in her eyes, the dignity of a voluntary and disinterested service.
She had been the only nurse of her kind mistress through her last long illness. Hers was that faithful affection that preferred long vigils at the bedside through the watches of the night,—the nurse that the sleepless eye ever found awake. Hers was that sentient sympathy that could interpret the weary look,—that love that steals into the darkened room, anticipating every wish, divining every want, and which, in silence, like the evening dew on drooping flowers, revives and soothes the sufferer.
Her cares were unavailing: her kind mistress died, commending the little Edith to her watchful love.
Dinah received her as if she had been more than the child of her own bosom. Henceforth she was the jewel of her life; and, if Mr. Grafton had not interposed, she would have treated her like those precious jewels of the old Scottish regalia, that are said to be approached by only one person at a time, and that by torch-light.
Our forefathers and foremothers had a maxim that the will of every child must be early broken, to insure that implicit and prompt obedience that the old system of education demanded. Mr. Grafton wisely left the breaking of the little Edith's will to Dinah.