“Mother, you’ve been away forever,” said Fanny, folding her veil for her and putting away her furs.

“Are you going every day just like this for ever and ever?

“Every day, darling, but I’m here every night.  Shall I run back to the kitchen and broil the chops, Miss Polly?”

But the chops were already broiled, for Miss Polly had finished her sewing early, and she had beaten up two tiny cups of custard for the children.

“It’s nicer than nursery suppers, isn’t it, Fanny?” asked Archibald a little later while he ate his bread and milk from a blue bowl.  “Mother, I like being poor.  Let’s stay poor always.”

A phrase of Mrs. Fowler’s, “happiness costs so little,” floated through Gabriella’s mind as she poured Miss Folly’s coffee out of the tin coffee pot.  She was so tired that her body ached; her feet were smarting and throbbing from the long standing; and her eyes stung from the cold wind and the glare of the elevated train; but she knew that in spite of these discomforts she was not unhappy—­that she was, indeed, far happier than she had been for the past six years in the hushed suspense of her father-in-law’s house.  When she had carried the supper things back to the sink in the kitchen, had taught the children their lessons, heard their prayers, and put them to bed, she repeated the words to herself while she sat sewing beside the lamp in front of the comforting glow of the fire, “After all, happiness costs so little.”

The next morning, and on every morning throughout the winter, she was up by six o’clock, and had taken in the baker’s rolls and the bottle of milk from the outer door before Miss Polly or the children were stirring.  Then, having dressed quickly, she ran back to the kitchen and made the coffee and boiled the eggs while the other lodgers were still sleeping.  Sometimes the mother of one of the art students would join her over the gas range, but usually her neighbours slept late and then darted through the hall in kimonos, with tumbled hair, to a hurried breakfast at the kitchen table.

Her life was so busy that there was little time for anxiety, and less for futile and painful dwelling upon the past.  To get through the day as best she could, to start the children well and in a good humour, to make herself useful, if not indispensable, to Madame, to return with a mind clear and fresh enough to give Fanny and Archibald intelligent lessons, to sew on their clothes or her own until midnight, and then to drop into bed, with aching limbs and a peaceful brain, too tired even to dream—­these things made the life that she looked forward to, week after week, month after month, year after year.  It was a hard life, as Miss Polly often remarked, but hard or soft, her strength was equal to it, her health was good, her interest in her work and in her children never flagged for a minute.  Only on soft spring days, coming home in the dusk, she would sometimes pass carts filled with hyacinths, and in a wave the