her before--not when she was confirmed, not when she had stood at the
head of her class, not when she had engaged herself to Arthur Peyton two
years before. It was the pure flame of experience at its highest point
that burned in her.

"I will take care of the children," she said breathlessly. "I will give
up my whole life to them. I will get a place in a store and work my
fingers to the bone, if only Jane will never go back."

For a moment there was silence; but while Gabriella waited for somebody
to answer, she felt that it was a silence which had become vocal with
inexpressible things. The traditions of Uncle Meriweather, the
conventions of Mrs. Carr, the prejudices of Jimmy, and the weak impulses
of Jane, all these filled the dusk through which the blank faces of her
family stared back at her. Then, while she stood white and trembling
with her resolve--with the passionate desire to give herself, body and
soul, to Jane and to Jane's children--the voice of Experience spoke
pleasantly, but firmly, through Cousin Pussy's lips, and it dealt with
Gabriella's outburst as Experience usually deals with Youth.

"You are a dear child, Gabriella," it said; "but how in the world could
you help Jane by going into a store?"

In the midst of the emotional scene, Cousin Pussy alone remained sweetly
matter-of-fact. Though she was not without orderly sentiments, her
character had long ago been swept of heroics, and from her arched gray
hair, worn à la Pompadour, to her pretty foot in its small neat boot,
she was a practical soul who had as little use for religious ecstasy as
she had for downright infidelity. There seemed to her something
positively unnatural in Gabriella's manner--a hint of that "sudden