Not a helping hand had they stretched out to my widowed mother in her poverty, when one kindly touch would have meant all.
They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes.

What my father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died when I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern and puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken of the prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance.
Seven years to-day have I been a free man.
Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my Aunt Jessica, Mrs.Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for stepping into the place that should have been the inheritance of her husband and of her son.

Rather has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to point out my duties as the head of the house.

If I refuse to be adopted, avoid ambitions and disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her good-will.

She is a well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and having begun to dye her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not the curiosity to abandon the practice and see what colour will result.
I wish I could like her.