I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a child.

Even when Lady Gould died in 1733 there was little money for the children. Sarah's mother Sarah Gould was the daughter of Sir Henry Gould a judge on the King's Bench who had been reappointed to the Queen's Bench and Sarah Davidge Gould. Henry was sent to Eton but all of the daughters were sent to Mary Rookes's boarding school in Salisbury.

She was the author of The Governess or The Little Female Academy (1749) which was the first novel in English written especially for children (children's literature) and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple (1744).