She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallen dynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respected capability and energy and endurance.

She combined a romantic heart with a practical head in a way peculiar to her nation.

She knew the pedigree of every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was, probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain.

She devoutly believed her own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilst in some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense of the defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing more than to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs.
This daughter, with much of her mother's strong will and practical capacity, had got her father's _physique_ and a good deal of his artistic temperament.

Dreading the development of _de Vandaleur_ qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously practical and orderly.