Of the multitude of obstacles which nullified her social projects, the most permanent and unsurmountable were her own over-zealous opportunism, her daughter's inertia, and her husband's earnest single-mindedness. The Reverend Edward Pilkington was a man of limited outlook but sincere purpose. The country parish in which he worked, not cognisant of his limitations, appreciated his sincerity, enjoyed his ministrations, and made endless demands on his time and sympathy. For the most part, enjoying his work as he did and capable of estimating its usefulness, Edward Pilkington was a happy man. His home certainly lacked serenity, but he asked little of life, and if he was sometimes shamed by his wife's scornful refusal of invitations, and even more shamed by her gushing acceptances, still she was an admirable housewife, and there was always some sick parishioner to provide a ready means of escape from her tongue. When she saw him adjusting his old scarf, and searching helplessly for a pair of gloves, Mrs. Pilkington would raise her eyebrows and enquire acidly: "What! Am I to be left again this evening?" To which Mr. Pilkington contented himself by replying vaguely and apologetically: "I'm afraid so my dear. You know a clergyman's time is not his own." Dora had no means of escape. She returned at eighteen from the rather cheap boarding school where she had spent the last four years, with a vague idea of helping her mother, being useful to her father, and ultimately marrying some delightful and desirable young man. In point of fact neither parent required her assistance, and her mother who had hoped with an almost savage intensity for a daughter pretty and clever enough to make a place for herself in the county, was disappointed by Dora's uncertain looks and complete lack of initiative. Gradually Mrs. Pilkington became so embittered by her daughter's inadequacy that a stumbling reply, any manifestation of the gaucherie natural to unsophisticated eighteen was enough to provoke an outburst of taunts and ridicule. The reason for this was incomprehensible to Dora. She knew only that she was a failure, and having tried the effect of an incipient rebellion against her mother in the form of a muddled and consequently fruitless appeal to her father, she sank little by little into a state of apathy.