“But it isn’t the same thing, mother,” explained Gabriella, with angelic patience.  “Nobody will get me to make hats at home, and, besides, I’ve got to learn how to do it.  I’ve got to learn business methods.”

“But not in a shop, my dear,” protested Uncle Meriweather in the precise English of his youth.

“Bless my heart!” chuckled Cousin Jimmy.  “Business methods!  You’re as good as a show, Gabriella, and, by George! you’ve plenty of pluck.  I like pluck in man or woman.”

“I shouldn’t encourage her if I were you, Mr. Wrenn,” said Cousin Pussy, almost forgetting to be indirect.

“Well, of course, I don’t approve of that store business,” replied Jimmy, deprecatingly, “but I can’t help liking pluck when I see it.  Look here, Gabriella, if you’re bent on working, why don’t you turn in and teach?”

“Yes, let her teach by all means,” agreed Uncle Meriweather, with genuine enthusiasm for the idea.  “I’ve always regarded teaching as an occupation that ought to be restricted by law to needy ladies.”

“But I can’t teach, I don’t know enough, and, besides, I’d hate it,” protested Gabriella.

“I’m sure you might start a school for very little children,” said Mrs. Carr.  “You don’t have to know much, to teach them, and you write a very good hand.”

“What about plain sewing?” asked Pussy in her ready way.  “Couldn’t you learn to make those new waists all the girls are wearing?”

“I haven’t the patience to sew well.  Look how hard mother works, making buttonholes with stitches so fine you can hardly see them, and yet she doesn’t get enough to put bread into her mouth, and but for her relatives she’d have been in the poorhouse long ago.  I’m tired of being on charity just because we are women.  Now that Jane has come home for good I am simply obliged to find something to do.”

“I don’t mind your wanting to work, dear, I think it’s splendid of you,” returned Pussy, “but I do feel that you ought to work in a ladylike way—­a way that wouldn’t interfere with your social position and your going to germans and having attention from young men and all that.”

“Why don’t you make lampshades, Gabriella?” demanded Jane in an emphatic burst of inspiration.  “Sophy Madison earns enough from lampshades to send her sister and herself to the White Sulphur Springs every summer.”

“Sophy makes all the lampshades that anybody wants, and, besides, she gets orders from the North—­she told me so yesterday.”

“Gabriella crochets beautifully,” remarked Mrs. Carr a little nervously because of the failure of her first suggestion.  “The last time I went to see Miss Matoaca Chambers in the Old Ladies’ Home, she told me she made quite a nice little sum for her church by crocheting mats.”

“And Gabriella can cook, too,” rejoined Pussy, with exaggerated sprightliness, for she felt that Mrs. Carr’s solution of the problem had not been entirely felicitous.  “Why doesn’t she try sending some of her angel food to the Woman’s Exchange?”