In her presence Egremont always felt a well-being, a peace of mind, which gave to his own look its pleasantest quality.

Of friends she was still, and would ever be, the dearest to him.

The thought of her approval was always active with him when he made plans for fruitful work; he could not have come before her with a consciousness of ignoble fault weighing upon his mind.
She passed upstairs, and he followed more slowly.

Behind the first landing was a small conservatory; and there, amid evergreens, sat two children whose appearance would have surprised a chance visitor knowing nothing of the house and its mistress.

They obviously came from some very poor working-class home; their clothing was of the plainest possible, and, save that they were very clean and in perfect order, they might have been sitting on a doorstep in a London back street.
Mrs.Ormonde had thrown a kind word to them in hurrying by.