Her old rebellious sense of something inherently absurd in the clerical status had been gradually slain in her by her long contact through him with the finer and more imposing aspects of church life.

She was still on light skirmishing terms with the Harden curates, and at times she would flame out into the wildest, wittiest threats and gibes, for the momentary satisfaction of her own essentially lay instincts; but at bottom she knew perfectly well that, when the moment came, no mother could be more loyal, more easily imposed upon, than she would be.
'I suppose, then, Robert, we shall be back at Murewell before very long,' she said to him one morning abruptly, studying him the while out of her small twinkling eyes.

What dignity there was already in the young lightly-built frame! What frankness and character in the irregular, attractive face! 'Mother,' cried Elsmere, indignantly, 'what do you take line for?
Do you imagine I am going to bury myself in the country at five or six-and-twenty, take six hundred a year, and nothing to do for it?
That would be a deserter's act indeed.' Mrs.Elsmere shrugged her shoulders.

'Oh, I supposed you would insist on killing yourself, to begin with.

To most people nowadays that seems to be the necessary preliminary of a useful career.' Robert laughed and kissed her, but her question had stirred him so much that he sat down that very evening to write to his cousin Mowbray Elsmere.