To her he gave that mother's portrait, taking it solemnly from his breast-pocket, and attentively contemplating it before it left his hands.

The ladies pressed him for a thousand details of their mama's youthful life; they found it a strange consolation to talk of her and image her like Cornelia.

The foreign halo about the Colonel had an effect on them that was almost like what nobility produces; and by degrees they heated their minds to conceive that they were consenting to an outrage on that mother's memory, in countenancing Mrs.Chump's transparent ambition to take her place, as they did by staying in the house with the woman.
The colonel's few expressive glances at Mrs.Chump, and Mrs.Chump's behaviour before the colonel, touched them with intense distaste for their present surly aspect of life.

Civilized little people are moved to fulfil their destinies and to write their histories as much by distaste as by appetite.

This fresh sentimental emotion, which led them to glorify their mother's image in their hearts, heightened and gave an acid edge to their distaste for the think they saw.