She was a lady of high repute and lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed more and more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the ignorance around her.

In vain she strove, from year to year, to make the young men hearken, to teach them what became their birth, and give them sense of honour.

It was her favourite word, poor thing! and they called her "Old Aunt Honour." Very often she used to say that I was her only comfort, and I am sure she was my only one; and when she died it was more to me than if I had lost a mother.
'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother, although they say that my father was the eldest son of Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravest and the best of them.

And so they call me heiress to this little realm of violence; and in sorry sport sometimes, I am their Princess or their Queen.
'Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would perhaps be very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so.

We have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of winter and power of the summer sun, untroubled also by the storms and mists that veil the mountains; although I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often.