To these things she had to add the intangible contempt of servants, and the feeling of constraint in the house where she had been the beloved child and the one in authority.

Also she found the insolence which Stephen had to brave every time he called upon her just as difficult to bear as were her own peculiar slights.

Julius had ceased to recognize him, had ceased to speak of him except as "that person." Every visit he made Charlotte was the occasion of some petty impertinence, some unmistakable assurance that his presence was offensive to the master of Seat-Sandal.
All these things troubled the mother also, but her bitterest pang was the cruelty of Sophia.

A slow, silent process of alienation had been going on in the girl ever since her engagement to Julius: it had first touched her thoughts, then her feelings; now its blighting influence had deteriorated her whole nature.

And in her mother's heart there were sad echoes of that bitter cry that comes down from age to age, "Oh, my son Absalom, Absalom! My son, my son!" "O Sophia! oh, my child, my child! How can you treat me so?
What have I done ?" She was murmuring such words to herself when the door was opened, and Sophia entered.