Her brother and her great-nephew represented to her the flower of human kind; she had never been capable, and probably never would be capable, of quarrelling with either of them on any subject whatever.

At the same time she had her rights with them.

She was at any rate their natural guardian in those matters, relating to womankind, where men are confessedly given to folly.

She had accordingly kept a shrewd eye in Aldous's interest on all the young ladies of the neighbourhood for many years past; knew perfectly well all that he might have done, and sighed over all that he had so far left undone.
At the present moment, in spite of the even good-breeding with which she knitted and chattered beside Marcella, she was in truth consumed with curiosity, conjecture, and alarm on the subject of this Miss Boyce.
Profoundly as they trusted each other, the Raeburns were not on the surface a communicative family.

Neither her brother nor Aldous had so far bestowed any direct confidence upon her; but the course of affairs had, notwithstanding, aroused her very keenest attention.