He had suggested following Nelly and her father up the mountain track, but she had detained him with a demonstrativeness unusual in her, which struck him like a jarring note.

What had come over his mother?
She had always been a woman of a cold and even harsh manner, at least to him.

To be sure, he had noticed with amazement that she had been different to Nelly.

She ought to have had a daughter instead of a son.

He had no idea that if he had been a dashing soldier he might have been a far less dutiful son, a far less satisfactory member of society than he was and yet have awakened a feeling in his mother's breast which she had never given to him.