It was the culmination after a year of misery and unassuaged grieving for her loss.

He had come into the nursery where the three little girls were playing--Halcyone and her two stepsisters--and he had made them all stand up in his rough way, and see who could catch the pennies the best that he threw from the door.

His brother, "Uncle Ted," was with him.

And the two younger children, Mabel of five and Ethel of four, shouted riotously with glee and snatched the coins from one another and greedily quarreled over those which Halcyone caught with her superior skill and handed to them.
She remembered her stepfather's face--it grew heavy and sullen and he walked to the window, where his brother followed him--and she remembered their words and had pondered over them often since.
"It's the damned breeding in the brat that fairly gets me raw, Ted," Mr.
Anderton had said.

"Why the devil couldn't Elaine have given it to my children, too.