[2] Her parents appear to have separated when she was very young (it was later said that John had deceived Sarah into entering into a bigamous marriage), and Clara went to live with her father on the Isle of Wight.

[1] At first she was content with merely setting an example of total abstinence; but in face of the awful ravages committed by drunkenness, she advanced a step further, and stood forward as an active member of the temperance reformation crusade.

Having taken the pen in hand, she appears to have understood that she had discovered her avocation, and she gave her attention to other matters more or less associated with the welfare of the industrial classes.

[1] Balfour's last public appearance was at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, in May 1877, when she was elected president of the British Women's Temperance Association.

On one occasion a gentleman at the close of the evening rose to apologize most chivalrously as the only member of the Committee who had voted against Balfour's being invited to lecture.

This volume was followed by Moral Heroism; the Trials and Triumphs of the Great and Good, a very attractive book for young people, of which an illustrated edition was issued.

Up-hill Work was a narrative, an attempt "to show in a familiar form that blending of earthly effort with heavenly faith, which alone constitutes real self-help."

Lilian's Trial was being published at the time of Balfour's death, in The Fireside; Job Tufton appeared in 1882 in the National Temperance publications; and The Burmish Family and The Manor Mystery were other tales brought out posthumously.

Her temperance tales – "Troubled Waters", "The Burnish Family", "Light at Last", "Drift; a Story of Waifs and Strays" and "Retribution" – were extensively circulated.

"Sketches of English Literature", "Morning Dewdrops" and "Working Women of the Nineteenth Century" held a high place in public esteem.

One of the first writers in The Fireside, she continued its "long, fast friend", her last serial story, "Lilian's Trial; or, Darkness before Dawn," appearing in its pages.

On this point she thus wrote in a private letter saying, "I am unhappy at the increasing tendency of the age towards fiction only, and often have some mental, nay spiritual conflict, on the subject.