CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST MONTH OF THEIR TROUBLE.
There are mothers and mothers.

Mrs.Mainwaring was the kind of mother who could not possibly say a harsh word to her children--she could not be severe to them, she could never do anything but consider them the sweetest and best of human beings.

The girls ruled her, and she liked to be ruled by them.

After her husband's death, and after the first agony of his loss had passed away, she sank into a sort of subdued state--she began to live in the present, to be content with the little blessings of each day, to look upon the sunshine as an unmitigated boon, and on the girls' laughter as the sweetest music.

She had been rich in her early married life, but Captain Mainwaring had lost his money, had lost all his large private means, through a bank failure, and before Daisy came into the world Mrs.Mainwaring knew that she was a very poor woman indeed.