To them he was generous and affectionate.

If she were only out of the way, he would have taken them to his house as his own, and they would in all respects have stood before the world as his adopted children.

Would it not be better if she were out of the way?
It was only in her most dismal moods that this question would get itself asked within her mind, and then she would recover herself, and answer it stoutly with an indignant protest against her own morbid weakness.

It would not be well that she should be away from her girls,--not though their uncle should have been twice a better uncle; not though, by her absence, they might become heiresses of all Allington.

Was it not above everything to them that they should have a mother near them?
And as she asked of herself that morbid question,--wickedly asked it, as she declared to herself,--did she not know that they loved her better than all the world beside, and would prefer her caresses and her care to the guardianship of any uncle, let his house be ever so great?
As yet they loved her better than all the world beside.