eavored to serve had turned out ungrateful, impudent and hardened.
Yet her loving pity followed even them: still, like the Lord whom she
served, she loved them in spite of their repulsiveness and ingratitude.
And when some notably ungrateful things were reported to her respecting
the female convicts on board the _Amphitrite_, she only prayed and
sorrowed for them the more. Especially was this the case when she heard
that the ship had gone down on the French coast, bearing to their tomb
beneath the sad sea waves, the 120 women, with their children, being
conveyed in her to New South Wales. Not one hard thought did she
entertain of them: all was charity, sorrow and tenderness. And if for
one little moment her new theories as to the treatment of criminals
seemed to be broken down, never for an instant did she set them aside.
She knew that perfection could only be attained after many long years of
trial and probation. While undermining the old ideas, she set herself an
equally gigantic task in establishing the new.

CHAPTER XII.

MRS. FRY IN DOMESTIC AND RELIGIOUS LIFE.

Hitherto our little monograph has dealt mainly with Mrs. Fry's _public_
life and work. Possibly, however, the reader may now feel curious to
know how she bore the strain of private responsibilities; how as a wife,
mother, neighbor, and Christian, she performed the duties which usually
fall to people in those positions. It does not appear that she was
wanting in any of them.

As the wife of a city merchant, as the mistress, until reverses came, of
a large household, as the mother of a numerous family of boys and girls,
and as the plain Friend, and minister among Friends, she seems to have
fulfilled the duties which devolved upon her with quiet, cheerful
simplicity, persevering conscientiousness, and prayerful earnestness.
She was much the same in sunshine and in shadow, in losses and in
prosperity; her only anxiety was to do what was right. From the
revelations of her journal we find that self-examination caused her
frequently to put into the form of writing, the questions which
harassed her soul. There can be no reasonable doubt that she _was_
harassed as all over-conscientious people are--with the fear and
consciousness that her duties were not half done. How few of this class
ever contemplate themselves or their works with anything like
satisfaction! A short extract from her journal penned during the first
years of her wedded life affords the