A spark of excitement, of anticipation, lit up Nelly's sad eyes.

The General could have hugged the Dowager.
"Your dear father," the Dowager said to Nelly one day, "how calm he grows as he turns round to old age! I see in him more and more the brother my dear Gerald looked up to and reverenced." The peacefulness, the good understanding, had their effect, too, on Nelly.

It was good that those she loved should dwell together in amity.
She was in that state that she could not have endured sharpness or rancour.
Only Pat shook his head disapprovingly.
"If he goes on like this," he said, "he'll be goin' to Heaven before his time.

I'd a deal sooner hear him grumblin' about her Ladyship as he used to do.

It 'ud be more natural-like, so it would.