But I stopped that," and here Malcolm doubled up his fists in a singularly suggestive manner.
Malcolm's only sister, a pretty, fair-haired girl, had died of fever when she was eight years old, and for years Mrs.Herrick had felt her loss too deeply to mention her name.

"If Florence had lived," she once said rather bitterly to her son, "she would have been my close companion, and we should have thought alike on all points;" but it may be doubted if this maternal dream would ever have been realised.
A mere accident had led to the adoption of Anna Sheldon shortly after Florence's death.

She was the orphan child of a young artist in whom Mrs.Herrick had interested herself, and when the broken-hearted wife had followed her husband, Mrs.Herrick had taken the lonely child home.
The kind action had brought its own reward.

Anna's gentleness and sweetness of disposition soon won the affection of her adopted mother.
She was submissive by nature, and yielded readily to the opinions and wishes of those she loved.

Mrs.Herrick's ideas on the subject of education might be bracing and invigorating, but there was nothing oppressive in her rule.