discomforts and absurdities in life--this was perhaps to be
accounted among her best psychological heirlooms.

Her first thought on awaking late this morning (for she too had
been kept awake by the storm) was that there could be no school.
And this was only Friday, with Saturday and Sunday to follow--three
whole consecutive days of holiday! Gabriella's spirits invariably
rose in a storm; her darkest days were her brightest. The weather
that tried her soul was the weather which was disagreeable, but not
disagreeable enough to break up school. When she taught, she taught
with all her powers and did it well; when not teaching, she hated
it with every faculty and capacity of her being. And to discharge
patiently and thoroughly a daily hated work--that takes noble
blood.

Nothing in the household stirred below. The members of the family
had remained up far into the night. As for the negroes, they
understand how to get a certain profit for themselves out of all
disturbances of the weather. Gabriella was glad of the chance to
wait for the house-girl to come up and kindle her fire--grateful
for the luxury of lying in bed on Friday morning, instead of
getting up to a farmer's early breakfast, when sometimes there were
candles on the table to reveal the localities of the food! How she
hated those candles, flaring in her eyes so early! How she loved
the mellow flicker of them at night, and how she hated them in the
morning--those early-breakfast candles!

In high spirits, then, with the certainty of a late breakfast and
no school, she now lay on the pillows, looking across with
sparkling eyes at last night's little gray ridge of ashes under the