Mrs Gifford shrank from all disagreeables, great and small, and systematically turned her back on anything which was disturbing or painful, so that it was only from chance remarks that her daughter had gained any information about the past. She knew that her father had been a successful artist, although not in the highest sense of the term. He had a trick of turning out pretty domestic pictures which appealed to the taste of the million, and which, being purchased by enterprising dealers, were reproduced in cheap prints to deck the walls of suburban parlours. While he lived he made a sufficient income, and before his death a formal reconciliation had taken place between the runaway daughter and her north-country parents, from whom she later inherited the money which had supported herself and her daughter throughout the years of her widowhood. Claire had the vaguest idea as to the amount of her mother's means, for until the last few years the question of money had never arisen, they had simply decided what they wished to do, without considering the cost, but of late there had been seasons of financial tightness, and the morning on which this history begins had brought a most disagreeable awakening. Mrs Gifford was seated in the salon staring disconsolately at a note which had just arrived by the afternoon post. It was a very disagreeable note, for it stated in brief and callous terms that her account at the bank was overdrawn to the extent of three hundred francs, and politely requested that the deficit should be made good. Claire looked flushed and angry; Mrs Gifford looked pathetic and pale. It seemed, in the first place, quite ludicrous that such a relationship as that of mother and daughter should exist between two women who looked so nearly of an age, and Mrs Gifford's youthful appearance was a standing joke in the Pension. Every new visitor was questioned by Madame as to the relationship between the two English ladies, and never had one of the number failed to reply "sisters," and to be convulsed with astonishment when corrected; and in good truth Mrs Gifford was a wonderful specimen of the prolonged youth which is a phenomenon of the present day.