At forty, on losing her voice, she took to
playing the piano, practising eight hours a day; and when she was over
sixty she began the study of Hebrew.
The only child of this union was Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin,
generally called Fleeming Jenkin, after Admiral Fleeming, one of his
father's patrons. He was born on March 25, 1833, in a building of the
Government near Dungeness, his father at that time being on the coast-
guard service. His versatility was evidently derived from his mother,
who, owing to her husband's frequent absence at sea and his weaker
character, had the principal share in the boy's earlier training.
Jenkin was fortunate in having an excellent education. His mother took
him to the south of Scotland, where, chiefly at Barjarg, she taught him
drawing among other things, and allowed him to ride his pony on the
moors. He went to school at Jedburgh, and afterwards to the Edinburgh
Academy, where he carried off many prizes. Among his schoolfellows were
Clerk Maxwell and Peter Guthrie Tait, the friends of his maturer life.
On the retirement of his father the family removed to Frankfort in 1847,
partly from motives of economy and partly for the boy's instruction.
Here Fleeming and his father spent a pleasant time together, sketching
old castles, and observing the customs of the peasantry.
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