The habitual sword-crossing between her and Wilfrid was naturally regarded as their mode of growing endeared to each other; their intellectual variances could not, by a sober gentleman of eight-and-forty and by a young widow whose interest in the world was reviving, be regarded as a bar to matrimony.

'Family,' Beatrice would not bring, but she was certain to inherit very large fortune, which, after all, means more than family nowadays.

On the whole it was a capital thing for Wilfrid that marriage would be entered upon in so smooth a way.

Mr.Athel was not forgetful of his own course in that matter; he understood his father's attitude as he could not when resisting it, and was much disposed to concede that there might have been two opinions as to his own proceeding five-and-twenty years ago.
But for Beatrice, the young man's matrimonial future would have been to his father a subject of constant apprehension; as it was, the situation lost much of its natural hazard.
In Emily there was nothing that suggested sentimentality; rather one would have thought her deficient in sensibility, judging from the tone of her conversation.

She did not freely express admiration, even in the form of assent to what was said by others.