The tall slim figure, always of a kind of quaker neatness; the innocent anxious face, anxious bright hazel eyes; the timid, yet gracefully cordial ways, the natural intelligence, instinctive sense and worth, were very characteristic.

Her voice too; with its something of soft querulousness, easily adapting itself to a light thin-flowing style of mirth on occasion, was characteristic: she had retained her Ulster intonations, and was withal somewhat copious in speech.

A fine tremulously sensitive nature, strong chiefly on the side of the affections, and the graceful insights and activities that depend on these:--truly a beautiful, much-suffering, much-loving house-mother.

From her chiefly, as one could discern, John Sterling had derived the delicate _aroma_ of his nature, its piety, clearness, sincerity; as from his Father, the ready practical gifts, the impetuosities and the audacities, were also (though in strange new form) visibly inherited.

A man was lucky to have such a Mother; to have such Parents as both his were.
Meanwhile the new Wife appears to have had, for the present, no marriage-portion; neither was Edward Sterling rich,--according to his own ideas and aims, far from it.