I tell Charley and Jane, one can’t have everything.  How different your life would have been, my dear daughter, if you had listened to the prayers of your mother, and married a gentle Christian character like Arthur Peyton.

But I mustn’t let my thoughts run away with me.  Of course, even if your heart had not been broken, it would be impossible for you to think of another man as long as your husband is living.  No pure woman could do that, and when people tell me about divorced women who remarry, I always maintain that they are not what my mother and I would call “pure women.”  I would rather think of you nursing your broken heart forever in solitude than that you should put such a blot upon your character and the name of the Carrs.  Of course, you were right to divorce George after he forsook you for Florrie—­even his mother tells everybody that you were right—­but the thought of a second marriage would, I know, be intolerable to your refined and sensitive nature.  After all, he is still your husband in the sight of God, and I said this to Miss Lizzie Peyton when we were talking of Arthur.

     It is almost eleven o’clock, and I must stop and undress.  Kiss the
     dear children, and remember me kindly to Miss Polly.

     Your loving mother.

As she refolded the letter Gabriella stood for an instant with her dreaming gaze on the delicate Italian handwriting on the envelope.

“It’s amazing how wide the gulf is between the generations,” she thought, not without humour.  “I believe mother thinks of George oftener than I do, and I’d marry Arthur to-morrow if he wanted me to—­except for the children.”

Then, as Archibald rushed into the room, she caught him in her arms, and held him hungrily to her bosom.

“My darling, you want to keep your mother, don’t you?”

“I jolly well do.  What’s the trouble, mother?  I believe it’s all that sitting up over Fanny’s old dresses.  Why don’t you make something pretty for yourself?”

“She has to have things, and you love me just as well without them, don’t you?”

“But I want you to have them, too.  I like you to look pretty, and you are pretty.”

“Then I can look pretty in plain clothes, can’t I?”

“I tell you what I am going to do,” he hesitated a minute, knitting his heavy brows over his spectacles, which looked so odd on a boy.  “Next summer when school is over I’m going to work and make some money so you can have a velvet dress in the autumn—­a black velvet dress with lace on it—­lots of lace—­and a hat with feathers.”

“You foolish boy!” laughed Gabriella.  “Do you think for an instant I’d let you?” Her voice was gay, but when he had broken away from her clasp, and was racing along the hail for his school books, she turned aside to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“It’s wrong, but I love, him more than I love Fanny,” she said.  “I love him more than all the rest of the world.”.