We may go back to England some day, and I should not at all like you to be less strong than others." As, however, such opportunities were very small, she had an apparatus of poles, horizontal bars, and ropes set up, such as those she had seen, in England, in use by the boys of one of the families where she had taught, before her marriage; and insisted upon Gregory's exercising himself upon it for an hour every morning, soon after sunrise.

As she had heard her husband once say that fencing was a splendid exercise, not only for developing the figure, but for giving a good carriage as well as activity and alertness, she arranged with a Frenchman who had served in the army, and had gained a prize as a swordsman in the regiment, to give the boy lessons two mornings in the week.
Thus, at fifteen, Gregory was well grown and athletic, and had much of the bearing and appearance of an English public-school boy.

His mother had been very particular in seeing that his manners were those of an Englishman.
"I hope the time will come when you will associate with English gentlemen, and I should wish you, in all respects, to be like them.

You belong to a good family; and should you, by any chance, some day go home, you must do credit to your dear father." The boy had, for some years, been acquainted with the family story, except that he did not know the name he bore was his father's Christian name, and not that of his family.
"My grandfather must have been a very bad man, Mother, to have quarreled with my father for marrying you." "Well, my boy, you hardly understand the extent of the exclusiveness of some Englishmen.

Of course, it is not always so, but to some people, the idea of their sons or daughters marrying into a family of less rank than themselves appears to be an almost terrible thing.