“And do you never imagine that there are people who care less for sunshine than you do, Gabrielle?” Bertha asked, rather sadly. “Yes, certainly, sister; but still it seems to me almost like a sin to shut out the beautiful heaven’s sunlight as it has been shut out in this house. Winter and summer, it is always alike. If it was not for my own bright little room up stairs, I think I never should be gay here at all.” “Well, Gabrielle, you need not complain of the gloominess of this room just now,” Miss Vaux said. “At nine o’clock on an August evening I suppose all rooms look pretty much alike.” “Oh, sister, no!” Gabrielle cried. “Have you never noticed the different kinds of twilight? Here, in this house, it is always winter twilight, quite colorless, and cold, and cheerless, but in other places, where the sun has shone, it is warm, and soft, and beautiful; even for an hour, or longer, after the sun has quite set, a faint rosy tinge, like a warm breath, seems to rest upon the air, and to shed such peace and almost holiness over every thing. That was the kind of twilight, I think of it so often, that there used to be at home. I remember, so very, very long ago, how I used to sit on the ground at my mother’s feet in the summer evenings, looking out through the open window at the dear old garden, where every thing was so very still and quiet that it seemed to me the very trees must have fallen asleep, and how she used to tell us fairy stories in the twilight. Sisters, do you remember it?” Gabrielle asked, her voice tremulous, but not altogether, so it seemed, with emotion that the recollection had called up. “I do,” Miss Vaux said, in a voice clear and cold, and hard as ice. From Bertha there came no answer. “It is one of the few things I recollect about her,” Gabrielle said again, very softly, “the rest is almost all indistinct, like a half-forgotten dream. I was only four years old, you say, Joanna, when she died?” “You know it; why do you ask?” Miss Vaux said, harshly and quickly. There was a pause. It was so dark that none of their faces could be seen, but one might have told, from the quick nervous way in which, unconsciously, Gabrielle was clasping and unclasping her hand, that there was some struggle going on within her. At last, very timidly, her voice trembling, though she tried hard to steady it, she spoke again. “Sisters, do not be angry with me. Often, lately I have wished so very much to ask you some things about my mother. Oh, let me ask them now. Dear sisters, tell me why it is that you never speak to me, or almost allow me to speak, of her? Is it because it grieves you so much to think of her death, or is there any other cause”—her voice sank so low that it was almost a whisper—“why her name is never mentioned amongst us? I have kept silence about this for so long, for I knew you did not wish to speak of it; but, oh sisters, tell me now! Ought I not to know about my own mother?”