Why should she stand there in what seemed to me the insolent pride of her beauty, while my sweet mother was never to stand again?
Why should she speak in those pitying tones?
My mother did not need her pity.

Then my father came up, too, and said that Miss Reinhart had better delay for a few days before beginning the routine of her duties so as to get used to the place.

She seemed quite willing.
"Laura," said Sir Roland, "will you take Miss Reinhart to her room ?" But I clung to my mother's hand.
"I cannot leave mamma," I said.

"Please do not ask me." He turned from me with an apology.
"Laura can never leave her mother," he said.
She answered: "Laura is quite right." But I caught just one glimpse of her beautiful eyes, which made me thoughtful.
She went, and my father was quite silent for some minutes afterward.
Then my mother asked: "What do you think of her, Roland ?" "Well, my darling, she is really so different to what I had expected, I can hardly form a judgment.

I thought to see a crude kind of girl.