One day she informed us that she came of a different and better class than her husband's.
She was the daughter of a small tradesman, and had begun life as a lady's-maid: her husband was nothing but a labourer; his people had been labourers for generations, consequently her marriage to him had involved a considerable descent in the social scale.

Hearing this, it was hard to repress a smile.
The contrast between this man and the ordinary villager of his class was as great in manners and conversation as in features and expression.

His combined dignity and gentleness, and apparent unconsciousness of any caste difference between man and man, were astonishing in one who had been a simple toiler all his life.
There were some grown-up children, others growing up, with others that were still quite small.

The boys, I noticed, favoured their mother, and had commonplace faces; the girls took after their father, and though their features were not so perfect they were exceptionally good-looking.
The eldest son--the disjointed, fly-away-looking young man who had conquered all his enemies--had a wife and child.

The eldest daughter was also married, and had one child.