I think Mrs.Harris had a perception--she was the kind of woman who arrived obscurely at very correct conclusions--that she was contributing to her step-daughter's amusement in a manner which her most benevolent intentions had not contemplated, and she was not by any means the little person to go on doing that indefinitely, perhaps increasingly.

Besides, it was in the natural order of things that Dora should marry, and Mrs.Harris doubtless foresaw a comfortable return for herself in the course of a year or two, when the usual promising junior in 'the Department' should gild his own prospects and promote the general well-being by acquiring its head for a father-in-law.

Things always worked out if you gave them time.

How much time you ought to give them was doubtless by now a pretty constant query with the little lady in her foggy exile; for two years had already passed and Dora had found no connection with any young man of the Department more permanent than those prescribed at dinners and at dances.

It is doubtful, indeed, if she had had the opportunity.