Bitterer trials remained. Herminia had acted through life to a
great extent with the idea ever consciously present to her mind
that she must answer to Dolly for every act and every feeling. She
had done all she did with a deep sense of responsibility. Now it
loomed by degrees upon her aching heart that Dolly's verdict would
in almost every case be a hostile one. The daughter was growing
old enough to question and criticise her mother's proceedings; she
was beginning to understand that some mysterious difference marked
off her own uncertain position in life from the solid position of
the children who surrounded her--the children born under those
special circumstances which alone the man-made law chooses to stamp
with the seal of its recognition. Dolly's curiosity was shyly
aroused as to her dead father's family. Herminia had done her best
to prepare betimes for this inevitable result by setting before her
child, as soon as she could understand it, the true moral doctrine
as to the duties of parenthood. But Dolly's own development
rendered all such steps futile.
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