Her bright smile was still on her lips, but Gabriella noticed that she pushed her buttered roll away as if she were choking. In the early afternoon, when George had gone to join his father in the office, and Gabriella, seated at a little white and gold desk in the room which had been Patty's, was just finishing a letter to her mother, Mrs. Fowler came in, and pushing a chintz-covered chair close to the desk, sank into it and laid her small nervous hand on the arm of her daughter-in-law. She was wearing a velvet bonnet, with strings, and a street gown of black broadcloth, which fitted her like a glove and accentuated, after the fashion of the 'nineties, her small, compact waist and the deep substantial curves of her bosom and hips. Her eyes, behind the little veil of spotted tulle which reached to the tip of her nose, were bright and wistful, and though her colour was too high, a smile of troubled sweetness lent it a peculiar charm of expression. "How nice you look, my dear," she said, with her pleasant manner, which no anxiety, hardly any grief, could dispel. "Are you very busy, or may I talk to you a little while?" Drawing closer to her, Gabriella raised the plump little hand to her lips. Beneath the surface pleasantness of Mrs. Fowler's life--that pleasantness which wrapped her like a religion--she was beginning to discern a deep disquietude. "I want to talk to you, mamma," she said, and her manner was a caress. "You love George very much, dear?" asked Mrs. Fowler so suddenly that Gabriella looked at her startled. For a minute the girl could not speak. "Oh, yes; oh, yes," she answered presently, and choked over the words. "We wanted so much to go to your wedding--we were afraid you would think it strange that we stayed away, but Archibald had his attack just then, and on top of it he was terribly worried about his affairs. We have had a very hard year, and we feel so sorry, both of us, that we can't do more for your pleasure. As it is, we are cutting down our expenses in every way, and I have even decided to give up my carriage the first of next year. "I know, I know," said Gabriella, who had never had a carriage, and to whom the giving up of one seemed the smallest imaginable sacrifice. "We mustn't add to your cares," she went on after a minute. "Wouldn't it be better, really better, if we were to take an apartment at once instead of waiting until June?" "Until June?" repeated Mrs. Fowler vaguely, and she added quickly: "It is the greatest pleasure to have you here. Since Patty went I get so terribly lonely, and I don't think it would be at all wise for you to go to yourselves. George has hardly anything except what his father is able to give him, you know. The poor boy hasn't the least head for business." "But we shouldn't need much. I am sure I could manage just with what George makes--no matter how little it is." For an instant Mrs. Fowler looked at her thoughtfully. "You could, but George couldn't," she answered.