Apostle-errant of
the order of Reconciliation; and wherever she went, cast out the devil
Sulkiness from all his strongholds--the lofty and the lowly alike. Our
good rector used to call her his Volunteer Curate; and declare that
she preached by a timely word, or a persuasive look, the best practical
sermons on the blessings of peace-making that were ever composed.

With all this untiring good-nature, with all this resolute industry
in the task of making every one happy whom she approached, there was
mingled some indescribable influence, which invariably preserved her
from the presumption, even of the most presuming people. I never knew
anybody venturesome enough--either by word or look--to take a liberty
with her. There was something about her which inspired respect as well
as love. My father, following the bent of his peculiar and favourite
ideas, always thought it was the look of her race in her eyes, the
ascendancy of her race in her manners. I believe it to have proceeded
from a simpler and a better cause. There is a goodness of heart, which
carries the shield of its purity over the open hand of its kindness: and
that goodness was hers.

To my father, she was more, I believe, than he himself ever imagined--or
will ever know, unless he should lose her. He was often, in his
intercourse with the world, wounded severely enough in his peculiar
prejudices and peculiar refinements--he was always sure to find the
first respected, and the last partaken by _her._ He could trust in her
implicitly, he could feel assured that she was not only willing, but
able, to share and relieve his domestic troubles and anxieties. If he
had been less fretfully anxious about his eldest son; if he had wisely
distrusted from the first his own powers of persuading and reforming,
and had allowed Clara to exercise her influence over Ralph more
constantly and more completely than he really did, I am persuaded that
the long-expected epoch of my brother's transformation would have really
arrived by this time, or even before it.

The strong and deep feelings of my sister's nature lay far below the
surface--for a woman, too far below it. Suffering was, for her, silent,
secret, long enduring; often almost entirely void of outward vent or
development. I never remember seeing her in tears, except on rare and
very serious occasions. Unless you looked at her narrowly, you would
judge her to be little sensitive to ordinary griefs and troubles. At
such tim