trouble to tell me so.  Well, mother says I oughtn’t to look so pleased, and I tell her there might be some sense in that if I’d stayed in the scrape, but if I haven’t a right to look pleased at getting out, I’d like to know who has.  It was all too funny for words, now, wasn’t it?  Of course, I shouldn’t dream of talking to everybody like this—­even if I am a big talker, I reckon I know when to hold my tongue and when not to—­but I’ve always told you everything, Gabriella, and I don’t mind the least bit in the world telling you about this.  It always relieves my mind to talk to somebody I can trust, and I know I can trust you.  Don’t you remember the way I used to run in on rainy afternoons when you lived way over in Hill Street, and tell you all about Fred Dudley and Barbour Willis?  And then I used to come and talk about poor Algy by the hour.  Wasn’t it too distressing about poor Algy?  I don’t believe I’ll ever get over it if I live to be a hundred, and even if I do run on like this, it doesn’t mean that my heart isn’t broken—­simply broken—­because it is.  Mother used to say, after father died, that you couldn’t measure a widow’s grief by the length of her veil; and that’s just exactly the way I feel about Algy.  I know you’ll understand, Gabriella, because you always understand everything—­”

“He was so deeply in love with you,” observed Gabriella sympathetically, while Florrie, diving amid the foam of her laces, brought out a tiny handkerchief, and delicately pecked at the corner of her eye, not near enough to redden the lid and not far enough away to disturb the rice powder on the side of her nose.

“He was crazy about me to the very last, you never saw anything like it.  Of course we weren’t a bit alike, I don’t mind telling you so, Gabriella, because I know you’ll never repeat it.  We weren’t really congenial, for Algy was just wrapped up in his law books, and there were whole days together when he wouldn’t open his mouth, but that didn’t seem to make any difference because, as he used to say, one of us had to listen sometimes.  But, you know, mother says a pair of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and after being married to Algy, I feel how true that is.  I got into the habit of talking so much when I used to run on about nothing to cheer him up—­he was always so grave and glum even as a boy, you remember—­and during his last illness—­you know he died of Bright’s disease, poor darling, and it came on just like that!—­he used to make me talk to him for hours and hours just to keep him from thinking.  Well, well, that’s all over now, and I don’t care what anybody says, my heart’s buried with Algy.  I don’t believe you were ever in love but once either, were you, Gabriella?” she inquired cheerfully.