Robert Evans, her father, was born at Ellaston, Staffordshire, of a substantial family of mechanics and craftsmen.  He was of massive build, tall, wide-shouldered and strong, and his features were of a marked, emphatic cast.  He began life as a master carpenter, then became a forester, and finally a land agent.  He was induced to settle in Warwickshire by Sir Roger Newdigate, his principal employer, and for the remainder of his life he had charge of five large estates in the neighborhood.  In this employment he was successful, being respected and trusted to the fullest extent by his employers, his name becoming a synonym for trustworthiness.  Marian many times sketched the main traits of her father’s character, as in the love of perfect work in “Stradivarius.”  He had Adam Bede’s stalwart figure and robust manhood.  Caleb Garth, in Middlemarch, is in many ways a fine portrait of him as to the nature of his employment, his delight in the soil, and his honest, rugged character.

Caleb was wont to say that “it’s a fine thing to have the chance of getting a bit of the country into good fettle, and putting men into the right way with their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving and solid building done—­that those who are living and those who come after will be the better for.  I’d sooner have it than a fortune.  I hold it the most honorable work that is.”  Robert Evans, like Caleb Garth, “while faithfully serving his employers enjoyed great popularity among their tenants.  He was gentle but of indomitable firmness; and while stern to the idle and unthrifty, he did not press heavily on those who might be behindhand with their rent, owing to ill luck or misfortune, on quarter days.”

While still living in Staffordshire, Robert Evans lost his first wife, by whom he had a son and a daughter.  His second wife, the mother of Marian, was a Miss Pearson, a gentle, loving woman, and a notable housewife.  She is described in the Mrs. Hackit of “Amos Barton,” whose industry, sharp tongue, epigrammatic speech and marked character were taken from life.  Something of Mrs. Poyser also entered into her nature.  She had three children, Christiana, Isaac and Mary Ann.  The house at Griff was situated in a rich landscape, and was a large, commodious farm-house of red brick, ivy-covered, and of two stories’ height.  At the back was a large garden, and a farm-yard with barns and sheds.

In the series of sonnets entitled “Brother and Sister,” Marian has given some account of her early life.  She had the attachment there described for her brother Isaac, and followed him about with the same persistence and affection.  The whole of that poem is autobiographical.  The account of the mother gives a delightful glimpse into Marian’s child-life: 

  Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,
    Stroked down my tippet, set my brother’s frill,
  Then with the benediction of her gaze
    Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still
  Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
    Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,
  So rich for us, we counted them as realms
    With varied products.