But you will not ridicule Rex--promise me." Anna ended with a beseeching look which touched Gwendolen.
"You are a dear little coz," she said, just touching the tip of Anna's chin with her thumb and forefinger.

"I don't ever want to do anything that will vex you.

Especially if Rex is to make everything come off--charades and everything." And when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life of Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen's plans, left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open and flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed.

He was a fine open-hearted youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his father's and Anna's, but softer in expression than the one, and larger in scale than the other: a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying ordinary innocent things so much that vice had no temptation for him, and what he knew of it lay too entirely in the outer courts and little-visited chambers of his mind for him to think of it with great repulsion.

Vicious habits were with him "what some fellows did"-- "stupid stuff" which he liked to keep aloof from.