As we have seen, she was of a gentle temper, but, as a child, determined and obstinate. Obstinacy in a child is the strength of purpose which, in man and woman, leads to all excellence. Before it is guided by reason, it is mere wilfulness. It was wonderful with what a silken thread Dinah guided the little Edith.
She possessed in her own character the firmness of the oak, and an iron resolution, but tempered so finely by the influences of love and religion, that she yielded to every thing that was not hurtful; but there she stopped, and went not a hair's breadth further.
It was beautiful to see the little Edith watching the mild and loving but firm eye of Dinah,—which spoke as plain as eye could speak,—and, when it said "No," yielding like a young lamb to a silken tether.
Nothing is easier than to gain the prompt obedience of a young child. Gentleness, firmness, and steadiness, are all that is requisite. Gentleness, firmness, and steadiness,—the two last perhaps the rarest qualities in tender mothers. When a young child finds its mother uniform—not one day weakly indulgent, and the next capriciously severe, but always the same mild, firm being—she is to the child like a beneficent but unchanging Providence; and he no more expects his own will to prevail, than children of an older growth expect the sun to stand still, and the seasons to change their order, for their convenience.
As soon as the little girl was old enough, she became the pupil of her father. Under his instruction, she could read the Latin authors with facility; and even his favorite Greek classics became playfully familiar as household words, although she really knew little about them. But the Christian ethics came home more closely to her woman's heart: their tender, pure, self-denying principles were more congenial to the truly feminine nature of the little Edith.
The character and example of her mother were ever held up to her by Dinah. At night, after her little childish prayer, when she laid her head on her pillow, her last thought was of her mother.
Ah, it is not necessary to be a Catholic, to believe in the intercession of saints. To a tender heart, a mother lost in infancy is the beautiful Madonna of the church; and the heart turns as instinctively to her as the devout Catholic turns to the holy mother and child.
In all Edith's solitary rambles, her pensive thoughts sought her mother. There was a particular spot in the evening sky where she fancied the spirit of her mother to dwell; and there, in all her childish griefs, she sought sympathy, and turned her eye towards it in childlike devotion.