Her own child was a son, who seemed to take his character rather from his father's family than from my own.

He was a wastrel and a rolling stone, always in scrapes at school, and always wanting to do ridiculous things.

My father, as Head of the House and his own senior by eighteen years, tried often to admonish him; but his perversity of spirit and his truculence were such that he had to desist.

Indeed, I have heard my father say that he sometimes threatened his life.

A desperate character he was, and almost devoid of reverence.
No one, not even my father, had any influence--good influence, of course, I mean--over him, except his mother, who was of my family; and also a woman who lived with her--a sort of governess--aunt, he called her.