"Don't you think, Gabriella, we might arrange to live with Jane?" she
asked. "It would be a saving of expense for us both, and we might be so
helpful about the children."

"And about Charley, too, I suppose," suggested Gabriella maliciously.

Mrs. Carr, having been born without a sense of humour, never understood
the broadest joke unless it was illustrated; but even to her it became
evident, after a moment's anxious thought, that Gabriella was teasing
her.

"You seem to forget that he is her husband," she replied, with a
pathetic clutch at her dignity, which, owing perhaps to the purple
"fascinator" and the mustard plaster, she failed completely to
recapture. Then, as she finished the milk and handed back the empty cup
to her daughter, she added wearily, for life, as she often said to
herself of late, was becoming almost too much for her, and she was
feeling worn out and old:

"My one comfort, Gabriella, is the thought that Arthur Peyton loves you.
There couldn't be anybody more unlike Charley."

"There couldn't be," agreed Gabriella mildly, for she felt that another
blow would prostrate her mother.




CHAPTER III