"I don't understand." "Don't you see, Mrs.Landholm, -- the person under obligation is always the inferior." "I never felt it so," she replied.
Her guest could not feel, what her son did, the strong contrast they made.

One little head was held as if certainly the neck had never been bowed under any sort of pressure; the other, in its meek dignity, spoke the mind of too noble a level to be either raised or lowered by an accident.
"It is another meaning of the word, mother, from that you arc accustomed to," Winthrop said.
Elizabeth looked at him, but nothing was to be gained from his face.
"Will you have the goodness to hand me my riding-whip," she said shortly.
"You will have to be obliged to me for that," he said as he picked it up.
"Yes," said Elizabeth; "but I pay for this obligation with a 'thank you'!" So she did, and with a bow at once a little haughty and not a little graceful.

It was the pure grace of nature, the very speaking of her mind at the moment.

Turning her horse's head she trotted off, her blue habit fluttering and her little head carried very gracefully to the wind and her horse's motion.
They stood and looked after her.
"Poor child!" said Mrs.Landholm, -- "she has something to learn.

There is good in her too." "Ay," said her son, "and there is gold in the earth; but it wants hands." "Yes," said Mrs.Landholm, -- "if she only fell into good hands -- " It might have been tempting, to a certain class of minds, to look at that pretty little figure flying off at full trot in all the riot of self-guidance, and to know that it only wanted good hands to train her into something really fine.