tender-handed

Earlston must have remembered once dining in the Manse of Maxton at a Communion time; for, as his tender-handed wife took her place beside his chair to feed her helpless husband, he always lifted up his palsied hand and always said to himself, to her, and above all, to God, the 131st Psalm.

Resinous splinters or rolled paper tapers were kept on the fireboard for candle lighters; also perhaps tongs for the tender-handed pipe lighter who could not handle a live coal in his hands.