She seems to have remained at the Notting Hill school till Easter, 1856, and to have carried away with her the warm good will and genuine—if sorely tried—respect of her headmistress, Mrs. H., with whom she kept up a correspondence for some time. For another year and a half she seems to have attended some school at Brighton within reach of her home, but study here was discouraged, and she became the patient of another doctor—or quack?—who prescribed a course of rubbing.
“Under the new regulation of no study,” writes Mrs. H., “I suppose you have plenty and to spare of the dolce far niente. I smiled at the ‘few lessons,’ and wondered in what occupation you might possibly spend your 24 hours.... Be assured, dear Sophy, that so much trifling and frivolity is culpable in the sight of Heaven. It is an unworthy waste of God’s gifts, and you are capable of something so much better!”
That life, even now, was not all “trifling and frivolity” is obvious from the following letter, which was written a few weeks later:
“Monday, Sept. 8th. 1856.
My own darling Mother,
This subject of confirmation has come up again, and I really must say I am positively shocked at the way it is settled and talked about. It is ‘How old are you?’ ‘Does your Papa wish you to be confirmed?’ and never, ‘Are you fit to be?’ or ‘Do you really wish it?’ It is just as if it were a history lecture to be attended. I really think it is wicked. Miss H. took it for granted that I should be and stuck down my name. I said, ‘No thank you, Miss H.,’ to her great indignation. I assured her you wished me to do exactly as I liked on such a subject, which she did not choose to believe at all.
But I really do wish it, Mother. I think it would help me, and I long to take the Lord’s Supper with you. Will you let me be confirmed from home?—that is, spend the actual day of confirmation at home, so that I may think of something besides how I am dressed and how good or bad an examination I passed, on the day I take those solemn promises on myself. Mother, dear, I seem less able to speak to you than anyone, but I do feel very much about it. It is just,—‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments,’ I do hope. No, I can’t write what I mean or anything else. Just write me one line by return of post. Mr. E. is certainly not the minister I should have chosen, nor Miss H.’s the place I should have preferred, but I don’t think that ought to stand in the way, for it is not in respect to them I stand.
I think I should have preferred waiting another year, but I don’t think I can quite expect God’s blessing on His child while I defer owning myself such.
Oh, Mother, Mother, how I wish you were here, but it seems as if He had expressly left me to myself each time confirmation has been spoken of. I do not think you will refuse either the permission I ask, or your blessing on the step I take,—unless it would be too great an excitement for you,—though it need not be, for you need not go with me....