Gabriella had tried hard--she told herself over and over again that she had tried as hard as she could--with both of her children; and with one of them at least she felt that she had succeeded.
There was, she knew, the making of a splendid man in her son; and his very ugliness, which had been so noticeable when he was a child, was developing now into attractiveness.

For it was the ugliness of strength, not of weakness, and there was no trace in his nature of the self-indulgence which had ruined his father.
"But I don't want to go to college, mother dear," protested Fanny, who always addressed Gabriella as "dear" when she was about to become intractable; "I want to go on the stage." "You are not to see another play, except when I take you, for a whole year.

Remember what I tell you, Fanny!" replied Gabriella sternly.

Not Mrs.Carr herself, not Cousin Becky Bollingbroke, of sanctified memory, could have regarded an actress's career with greater horror than did the advanced and independent Gabriella.

Any career, indeed, appeared to her to be out of the question for Fanny (a girl who couldn't even get on a street car without being spoken to), and of all careers the one the stage afforded was certainly the last she would have selected for her daughter.
"I'll remember," responded Fanny coolly, and Gabriella knew in her heart that the girl would disobey her at the first opportunity.