Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college." "For his education ?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that." "Not altogether.

But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable for him to go from home for a while." "Why?
Because his mother spoils him ?" The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer.

In truth, the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"-- love rarely injures -- as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the other side--in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little follies and faults--the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, which sometimes happened between the mother and the son.
This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character.

As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face--still fair; a clear, healthy red and white, though she was over forty--you might trace some harsh lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness and lovingness of disposition, Mrs.Bruce might in middle age have grown into what is termed a "hard" woman; capable of passionate affection, but of equally passionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon the beings most precious to her on earth.
"I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers," said Lord Cairnforth; "but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time.

How else are they to know the world ?" "I do not wish my boy to know the world." "But he must.