_His mother!_ Dressed almost like a girl, and, worst of all, looking almost like a girl, so slight and white and delicate.

Peter recollected that Sir Timothy had been very particular about his wife's apparel.

He liked it to be costly and dignified, and she had worn stiff silks and poplins inappropriate to the country, but considered eminently suited to her position by the Brawnton dressmaker.

And her hair had been parted on her forehead, and smoothed over her little ears.

Sir Timothy did not approve of curling-irons and frippery.
Peter did not know that his mother had cried over her own appearance often, before she became indifferent; and if he had known, he would have thought it only typical of the weakness and frivolity which he had heard attributed to Lady Mary from his earliest childhood.
His aunts were not intentionally disloyal to their sister-in-law; but their disapproval of her was too strong to be hidden, and they regarded a little boy as blind and deaf to all that did not directly concern his lessons or his play.