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. Before the captain went to India he insured
his life for £1000, and after his death Mrs. Mainwaring lived very
placidly on her small pension, and for any wants which she required
over and above what the pension could supply she drew upon the £1000.
She did not care, as a more sensible woman would have done, to invest
this little sum as so much capital; no, she preferred to let it lie in
the bank, and to draw upon it from time to time, as necessity arose.
She had no business friends to advise her, for the few acquaintances
she made at Rosebury knew nothing whatever of the value of money. Like
many another woman who has been brought up in affluence, neither had
Mrs. Mainwaring the faintest idea of how fast a small sum like £1,000
can dwindle. She felt comfortable during the latter years of her life
at the knowledge that she had a good balance in the bank. It never
occurred to her as a possibility that she who was still fairly young
could die suddenly and without warning. This event, however, took
place, and the girls were practically unprovided for.

Mrs. Mainwaring had never really worked for her children, but a mother
who had worked hard for them, and toiled, and exerted all her strength
to provide adequately for their future, might not perhaps have been