Her grandfather had gone bankrupt in the lace-market at a time when so many lace-manufacturers were ruined in Nottingham.

Her father, George Coppard, was an engineer--a large, handsome, haughty man, proud of his fair skin and blue eyes, but more proud still of his integrity.

Gertrude resembled her mother in her small build.

But her temper, proud and unyielding, she had from the Coppards.
George Coppard was bitterly galled by his own poverty.

He became foreman of the engineers in the dockyard at Sheerness.