"Why don't you make lampshades, Gabriella?" demanded Jane in an emphatic
burst of inspiration. "Sophy Madison earns enough from lampshades to
send her sister and herself to the White Sulphur Springs every summer."

"Sophy makes all the lampshades that anybody wants, and, besides, she
gets orders from the North--she told me so yesterday."

"Gabriella crochets beautifully," remarked Mrs. Carr a little nervously
because of the failure of her first suggestion. "The last time I went to
see Miss Matoaca Chambers in the Old Ladies' Home, she told me she made
quite a nice little sum for her church by crocheting mats."

"And Gabriella can cook, too," rejoined Pussy, with exaggerated
sprightliness, for she felt that Mrs. Carr's solution of the problem had
not been entirely felicitous. "Why doesn't she try sending some of her
angel food to the Woman's Exchange?"

Jimmy, who had listened to this advice with the expression of tolerant
amusement he always wore when women began to talk about the more serious
affairs of life in his presence, made an honest, if vulgar, attempt to
lighten the solemnity of the situation with a joke.

"Gabriella isn't trying to earn church money. You're out gunning for a
living, aren't you, Ella?" he inquired.

"I'm sick of being dependent," repeated Gabriella, while her face grew
stern. "Do you think if Jane had had enough money to live on that she
would ever have stood Charley so long?"