At the same
time, it was understood to be requisite for all who were not household
servants, or young men, to take the sacrament at one of the great
festivals: Squire Cass himself took it on Christmas-day; while those
who were held to be 'good livers' went to church with a greater,
though still with moderate frequency.
Mrs Winthrop was one of these: she was in all respects a woman of
scrupulous conscience, so eager for duties, that life seemed to
offer them too scantily unless she rose at half-past four, though this
threw a scarcity of work over the more advanced hours of the
morning, which it was a constant problem with her to remove. Yet she
had not the vixenish temper which is sometimes supposed to be a
necessary condition of such habits: she was a very mild, patient
woman, whose nature it was to seek out all the sadder and more serious
elements of life, and pasture her mind upon them. She was the person
always first thought of in Raveloe when there was illness or death
in a family, when leeches were to be applied, or there was a sudden
disappointment in a monthly nurse. She was a 'comfortable woman'-
good-looking, fresh-complexioned, having her lips always slightly
screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-room with the doctor or
the clergyman present. But she was never whimpering; no one had seen
her shed tears; she was simply grave and inclined to shake her head
and sigh, almost imperceptibly, like a funereal mourner who is not a
relation.
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