It was in the spring of 1900 when Dora was twenty-four, that Mrs. Pilkington's hitherto diffused and generalised unkindness crystallised into a passionate desire to marry her daughter with whatever difficulty, to any man, however unsuitable. It was intolerable to her to be the only woman for miles around with a marriageable and unmarried daughter. Dora by this time was conscious of but one wish; to escape as much as possible from her mother's criticism. With this object it was her custom to absent herself for the greater part of the day on long rambling walks. On her return she was always sharply questioned as to where she had been and whom she had seen, and the replies, nearly always unsatisfactory, were greeted with derision and annoyance. "You've just been wandering about, have you? You didn't see anyone but old Mr. Crowther and you didn't speak to him. I wonder what good that will do. You know, Dora, it's all very well to idle about, but a girl with no looks and no money can't afford to pick and choose. You're not getting any younger, are you?" There was no answer to this type of question. Dora would mumble something about there being no one to marry anyhow, and her mother would take her up. "Well, there's young Mr. Lawson at the Bank. I don't say he's anything very much, but what do you expect?" "You know he's utterly impossible, Mother," replied Dora, her face scarlet with indignation and embarrassment. "Well, Dora, I don't really see why you should look for anything better, and you may as well know that I'm tired to death of having you always hanging round the house." "Father doesn't feel like that anyhow," retorted Dora, with some courage which was quelled by her mother's reply. "Your father agrees with me that is a great pity you are never likely to attract any young man whom we could welcome as a son-in-law." There were many such conversations, always ending in a decisive victory for the mother, and in the daughter's abandonment to resentful tears. In May when Mrs. Pilkington heard that The Hall, the only large house in their parish, had been taken by a Mr. and Mrs. Greene with two grown-up sons, she felt that at last her efforts must be crowned with success. The further discovery that both sons were unmarried lashed her to an unprecedented exhibition of vulgarity. "That doubles your chances, Dora," she said triumphantly. Later, when the news filtered through that the elder son was engaged to a Miss Beckett and would be married in the autumn, she was wrought to a pitch of nervous exacerbation that found vent in threats. "Well, this is the end, Dora. Unless you manage to get engaged this summer, something will have to be done about you in the autumn."