Mrs.
Dutton brought with her one child, the beautiful girl introduced to the reader, and to whom she was studiously imparting all she had herself acquired in the adventitious manner mentioned.

Such were the means, by which Mildred, like her mother, had been educated above her condition in life; and it had been remarked that, though Mrs.Dutton had probably no cause to felicitate herself on the possession of manners and sentiments that met with so little sympathy, or appreciation, in her actual situation, she assiduously cultivated the same manners and opinions in her daughter; frequently manifesting a sort of sickly fastidiousness on the subject of Mildred's deportment and tastes.

It is probable the girl owed her improvement in both, however, more to the circumstance of her being left so much alone with her mother, than to any positive lessons she received; the influence of example, for years, producing its usual effects.
No one in Wychecombe positively knew the history of Dutton's professional degradation.

He had never risen higher than to be a lieutenant; and from this station he had fallen by the sentence of a court-martial.

His restoration to the service, in the humbler and almost hopeless rank of a master, was believed to have been brought about by Mrs.Dutton's influence with the present Lord Wilmeter, who was the brother of her youthful companions.