She was a good woman and a kind-hearted one, but the sense of humour was lacking in her.

She disliked all that she did not understand, and under the comprehensive term Bohemianism, she embodied all that was irregular and contrary to her creed.
"Herrick mere is a Philistine of the purest type," Amias Keston once said to his wife.

"No, I have never seen her, but I can draw my own conclusions.

Yea-Verily, my child, far be the day when that British matron crosses our humble threshold." Malcolm had determined not to disappoint his mother that evening, so he banished all thoughts of his friends from his mind, and a few minutes later he was showing people to their seats and chatting pleasantly with his acquaintances.
Now and then, in the midst of her duties as a hostess, Mrs.Herrick's eyes rested on her son's dark face with motherly pride and tenderness.
He was doing his part so well--in his quiet, unobtrusive manner he was making himself so agreeable.

Oh, if he would only have stayed with her, and been indeed the son of her right hand, and given himself to the work; and then for a moment there was a filmy look in the mother's eyes, and she listened a little absently to her favourite speaker.
Malcolm did his part like a man.