Yet of the two, it was the mother I preferred.

Of Felipe, vengeful and placable, full of starts and shyings, inconstant as a hare, I could even conceive as a creature possibly noxious.

Of the mother I had no thoughts but those of kindness.

And indeed, as spectators are apt ignorantly to take sides, I grew something of a partisan in the enmity which I perceived to smoulder between them.

True, it seemed mostly on the mother's part.