Her innocence touched Lucretia, who made haste to forestall a severe reproof from her husband:
“The love of the flesh is unholy, my daughter. We are bidden to strive with all the might which the Lord vouchsafes against the things of this world. To purify the heart through the working of the Holy Spirit, this is the highest good.”
“I think I do not understand thee, mother. Is the rose blushing for its sin in not being made like snowdrops?”
“Dorcas, restrain thy tongue; and, Lucretia, perhaps we are in error not to take the child more persistently to meeting. That she is restless and disturbing to the meditations of others must not be allowed to have too much weight.”
From that time forward the active girl placed herself under bonds to subdue her natural inclinations, and many a bright spring morning she sighed as she watched the lambs frisking in the fields, and noted the disappointment of the collie as she refused his invitation to a race, and with dripping hands she smoothed and resmoothed her curls, preparatory to the ride to meeting. It was hard work, too, for her to keep awake during the long silence or the droning tones of the preacher, that seemed arranged in order to lull the restless children to sleep, but she formulated a private code of morals, under which this trial figured as a dispensation to school the spirit in its early encounters with the tempter.
Occasionally the sermon interested her. Far more frequent was her retirement within herself, and in misery of spirit she recounted the long list of her sins, sincerely soliciting aid from on high that they might be overcome. Among the chief of her trials was to make the honest confession that she was not averse to looking at her own image, and from this constant sense of the enormity of the transgression grew an absolute intolerance of her beauty. She would have become morbid over it, but for the thoroughly healthful nature which reveled in outdoor exercise, and was of no mean assistance to the busy father in his lesser tasks. Dorcas was unselfish, too, and her mind turned readily into other channels than that of self-consciousness. She was a deft little housemaid, and imitated her mother’s kindly ways with the servants; but perhaps the absence of childish companions gave her an air of maturity hardly in accord with her years. She was dreamy too. Somewhere in her nature lurked a drop of Southern blood; that which colored her rich dark skin colored also her mental constitution. She was filled with romance and yet she had never heard a fairy-tale or listened to a troubadour’s song, but her soul was on fire at the relation of a heroic deed, or the unspoken sentiment of a pair of lovers.
Lucretia had chosen to teach the little maiden at home; perhaps the staid father had hesitated to send the worldling into the midst of temptations such as lurk behind the schoolroom door. His pride in her ready insight must have been great for he did not scorn knowledge, although he scorned honors, and Dorcas displayed a marvelous aptitude for study. Even this bore a cross to him. “She is more like a boy than a girl at books,” he thought, and cherished the memory of every gentle womanly exhibition.
Daniel dearly loved Lucretia. She was to him a type of the true wife, and undemonstrative as he was, little as she would have acknowledged the wish, there lurked in the heart of each an unspeakable sorrow that the only child which God had given to their arms should be so unlike the meek and patient woman, the sweet orthodox saint, who had borne her.
In 1815 prison reform was a dim dream in the hearts of a few. Men incline toward a theory of retributive justice, and are keen to assume the judgment rôle and fasten a stigma to sin, forgetful that although the sin may be outgrown, the stigma rarely is wiped away.
The orthodoxy of society was as fixed as the theological dogma of that early day; leniency was license to the common mind; and the culprit was faced with continual reminders of his guilt as a necessary step toward repentance.