She would never submit as Jane submitted; she would never become, through sheer inertia, a part of the ugliness that enveloped her.

Thanks to the vein of iron in her soul she would never--no, not if she died fighting--become one of the victims of life.
Going into the dressing-room, she bathed her eyes with cold water; and she was still drying them before the mirror when the children came in, flushed and blooming, with their hands in Miss Polly Hatch's.

What splendid children they were, she thought, looking wistfully at their eager faces.

Any father, any mother in the world, might be proud of them.

Fanny, the elder, was like an angel in her white fur coat and pert little cap, with her short golden curls like bunches of yellow silk on her shoulders, and her blue eyes, as grave as a philosopher's, beaming softly under her thick jet-black lashes.