Not that I would suggest any friction; I am convinced that there was nothing like that--at least, nothing that met the eye, or the ear.

Dora adored the three little boys and was extremely kind to their mother.

She regarded this lady, I have reason to believe, with the greatest indulgence, and behaved towards her with the greatest consideration; I mean she had unerring intuitions as to just when, on afternoons when Mrs.Harris was at home from dusk till dinner, she should be dying for a walk.

One could imagine her looking with her grey eyes at dear mamma's horizon and deciding that papa was certainly not enough to fill it by himself, deciding at the same time that he was never likely to be ousted there, only accompanied, in a less important and entirely innocent degree.

It may be surprising that any one should fly from so broad-minded a step-daughter; but the happy family party lasted a bare three months.