Even Mrs.Munday, because the old lady had been fond of her and had shown it, had been of more service to her, more a companion, had been nearer to her than her own mother.

In self-excuse she recalled the two or three occasions when she had tried to win her mother.

But fate seemed to have decreed that their moods should never correspond.

Her mother's sudden fierce outbursts of love, when she would be jealous, exacting, almost cruel, had frightened her when she was a child, and later on had bored her.

Other daughters would have shown patience, unselfishness, but she had always been so self-centred.