ent, and, in the midst of much shabbiness, continued to put
aside money in the shape of negroes. He also reared a son, who
contrived somehow to have higher notions than his father. These notions
of young Felix Kendrick were confirmed and enlarged by his marriage to
the daughter of a Methodist circuit-rider. This young lady had been
pinched by poverty often enough to know the value of economy, while the
position of her father had given her advantages which the most
fortunate young ladies of that day might have envied. In short, Mrs.
Felix turned out to be a very superior woman in all respects. She was
proud as well as pretty, and managed to hold her own with the element
which Grandsir Kendrick sometimes dubiously referred to as "the
quality." The fact that Mrs. Felix's mother was a Barksdale probably
had something to do with her energy and tact; but whatever the cause of
her popularity may have been, Grandsir Kendrick was very proud of his
son's wife. He had no sympathy with, and no part in, her high notions;
but their manifestation afforded him the spectacle of an experience
entirely foreign to his own. Here was his son's wife stepping high, and
compelling his son to step high. So far as Grandsir Kendrick was
concerned, however, it was merely a spectacle. To the day of his death,
he never ceased to higgle over a thrip, and it was his constant boast
that in his own experience it had always been convenient to give
prudence the upper hand of pride.

In 1850 the house was not showing many signs of decay, but young Mrs.
Felix had become the widow Kendrick, her daughter Kitty bad grown to be
a beautiful young woman, and her son Felix was a lad of remarkable
promise. The loss of her husband was a great blow to Mrs. Kendrick.
With all her business qualities, her affection for her family and her
home was strongly marked, and her husband stood first as the head and
centre of each. Felix Kendrick died in the latter part of November
1849, and his widow made him a grave under the shadow of a tree he had
planted when a boy, and in full view of her window. The obsequies were
very simple. A prayer was said, and a song was sung; that was all. But
it was understood that the funeral sermon would be preached at the
house by Mrs. Kendrick's brother, who was on his way home from China,
where he had been engaged in converting (to use a neighbourhood phrase)
the "squinch-eyed heathen."

The weeks went by, and the missionary brother returned;