During these weeks, the more his daughter had studied him and the ways to make herself of use to him, even if not a pleasure, the greater had become her admiration for the little woman who was his wife--who did it all, and so thoroughly! who did it all, and so tenderly! What she, the daughter, with all her great love for him, could think out only with careful effort, the wife divined; what she did with too much earnestness, the wife did easily, lightly. Her own words when she was with him were considered, planned; but the wife's talk flowed on as naturally and brightly as though she had never given a thought to adapting it to him; yet always was it perfectly adapted. Sara often sat looking at Madam Carroll, during these days, with a wonder at her own long blindness; a wonder also that such a woman should have borne always in silence, and with unfailing gentleness, her step-daughter's moderate and somewhat patronizing estimate of her. But even while she was thinking of these things Madam Carroll would perhaps rise and cross the room, stopping to pat dog Carlo on the rug as she passed, and she would seem so small and young, her very prettiness so unlike the countenance and expression one associates with a strong character, that the daughter would unconsciously fall back into her old opinion of her, always, however, to emerge from it again hurriedly, remorsefully, almost reverentially, upon the next example of the exquisite tact, tenderness, and care with which she surrounded and propped up her husband's broken days.