Good-bye. Be sure and come to see me soon. Gabriella, will you help
Florrie about her hat now? I declare, I thought Matty would never get
through with you. And, of course, we didn't want anybody but you to wait
on us. We were just saying that you had the most beautiful taste, and it
is so wise of you to go out to work and not sit down and sew at home in
order to support your position. A position that can't support itself
isn't much of a prop, my husband used to say. But I don't believe you'll
stay here long, you sly piece. You'll be married before the year is up,
mark my word. The men are all crazy about you, everybody knows that.
Why, Florrie met George Fowler in the street this morning, and when he
asked after you, his face turned as hot as fire, she said--"

Gabriella's face, above her starched collar with its neat red tie, was
slowly flooded with colour. Her brown eyes shone golden under her dark
lashes, and Mrs. Spencer told herself that the girl looked almost pretty
for a minute. "If she wasn't so sallow, she'd be really good looking."

Happily unaware that her face had betrayed her, Gabriella slid back a
glass door, took a hat out of the case, and answered indifferently,
while she adjusted the ribbon bow on one side of the crown:

"I didn't know Mr. Fowler had come back. I haven't seen him for ages."

From her small, smooth head to her slender feet she had acquired in
three months the composed efficiency of Miss Lancaster; and one might
have imagined, as Mrs. Spencer remarked to Florrie afterwards, that "she
had been born in a hat shop."

But instead of the weary patience of Miss Lancaster, she brought to her
work the brimming energy and the joyous self-confidence of youth. It was