Robin's divergence from his father's ways was, secretly, an acute disappointment to her.

When she caressed Nelly with a warmth which none of her friends would have credited her with possessing, there was compunction with the tenderness.

The child ought to have had the delight of marrying a soldier, a hero whom she could adore, as she herself had adored her Gerald.

When she pressed the golden head to her angular bosom she was asking the girl's pardon for her son's shortcomings.
"I shall have heroic grandchildren," she said to herself.

"Although Robin is a throwback to the Quaker, the grandsons of Gerald and Denis Drummond must be fighting men." She pondered long over those grandchildren, and derived a grim pleasure from the thought of them.