She would treat the affair as commencing with Storri's request.

But she would watch Dorothy; and if she detected symptoms of failure to appreciate Storri as a nobleman possessing wealth and station,--in short, if Dorothy betrayed an intention to refuse his exalted hand,--then she, Mrs.Hanway-Harley, would interfere.

She would take Dorothy in solemn charge, and compel that obtuse maiden to what redounded to her good.
Mrs.Hanway-Harley doubted neither the propriety nor the feasibility of establishing a censorship over Dorothy's heart, should the young lady evince a blinded inability to see her own welfare.
"That is what a mother is for," she ruminated.
Mrs.Hanway-Harley had forcibly administered paregoric in Dorothy's babyhood; she was ready to forcibly administer a husband now Dorothy was grown up.

The cases were in precise parallel, and never the ray of distrust entered Mrs.Hanway-Harley's mind.

Dorothy was not to escape good fortune merely because, through some perversity of girlish ignorance, she might choose to waive it aside.
Mrs.Hanway-Harley had Mr.Harley ask Storri to dinner on an average twice a week; she made these slender banquets wholly informal, and quite as though Storri were an intimate family friend.