No extraordinary interest was connected with their prospects in life: they would be married--and there would be an end of them.

As for the son, he had long since placed himself beyond the narrow range of his father's sympathies.

In the first place, his refusal to qualify himself for a mercantile career had made it necessary to dispose of the business to strangers.

In the second place, young Robert Graywell proved--without any hereditary influence, and in the face of the strongest discouragement--to be a born painter! One of the greatest artists of that day saw the boy's first efforts, and pronounced judgment in these plain words: "What a pity he has not got his bread to earn by his brush!" On the death of old Robert, his daughters found themselves (to use their own expression) reduced to a trumpery legacy of ten thousand pounds each.

Their brother inherited the estate, and the bulk of the property--not because his father cared about founding a family, but because the boy had always been his mother's favourite.
The first of the three children to marry was the eldest sister.
Maria considered herself fortunate in captivating Mr.Vere--a man of old family, with a high sense of what he owed to his name.