She skirted tempestuously over the surface of things, was the most sentimental of human beings, was often in tears over reminiscences of books or the weather, was deeply religious in a superficial way, and really--although she would have been entirely astonished had you told her so--cared for no one in the world but herself.

She was dressed always in dark colours, with the high shoulders of the day, elegant bonnets and little chains that jingled as she moved.

In her soul she feared and distrusted children, but she did not know this.

She did know, however, that she feared and distrusted her brother Samuel.
Her brother Samuel was all that the Trefusis family, as a conservative body who believed in tradition, had least reason for understanding.

He had been a failure from the first moment of his entry into the Grammar School in Polchester thirty-five years before this story.