“Why, there is Gabriella!  Won’t you get her for us, Miss Lancaster?”

Near one of the long windows, beyond which large greenish flies were buzzing around the branch of a mulberry tree in the alley, Gabriella was trying a purple hat on a prim-looking lady who regarded herself in the mirror with a furtive and deprecating air as if she were afraid of being unjustly blamed for her appearance.  “I’m not sure—­but I don’t think it suits me exactly,” she appeared to murmur in a strangled whisper, while she twisted her mouth, which held a jet-headed hatpin, into a quivering grimace.

“She’s waiting on Matty French,” said Mrs. Spencer, and she added impulsively, “I wonder what it is that men see in Gabriella.  You wouldn’t call her really pretty, would you, Miss Lancaster?”

“Well, not exactly pretty, but she has an interesting face.  It is so full of life.”

“Can’t you get her, mother?” asked Florrie; and Mrs. Spencer, always eager to oblige, rustled across the room and pounced vivaciously upon the prim lady and Gabriella.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere, Gabriella,” she began, nodding agreeably to Miss French.  “Florrie has tried on all the hats in the room, and she wants you to tell her if that white Leghorn is becoming.  Good morning, Matty!  That blue wing is so stylish.  I think you are very sensible to wear colours and not to stick to black as Susie Chamberlain does.  It makes her look as old as the hills, and I believe she does it just to depress people.  Life is too short, as I said when I left off mourning, to be an ink blot wherever you go.  And it doesn’t mean that she grieves a bit more for her husband than anybody else does.  Everybody knows they led a cat and dog’s life together, and I’ve even heard, though I can’t remember who told me, that she was on the point of getting a divorce when he died.  Are you going?  Well, I’m glad you decided on that blue hat.  I don’t believe you’ll ever regret it.  Good-bye.  Be sure and come to see me soon.  Gabriella, will you help Florrie about her hat now?  I declare, I thought Matty would never get through with you.  And, of course, we didn’t want anybody but you to wait on us.  We were just saying that you had the most beautiful taste, and it is so wise of you to go out to work and not sit down and sew at home in order to support your position.  A position that can’t support itself isn’t much of a prop, my husband used to say.  But I don’t believe you’ll stay here long, you sly piece.  You’ll be married before the year is up, mark my word.  The men are all crazy about you, everybody knows that.  Why, Florrie met George Fowler in the street this morning, and when he asked after you, his face turned as hot as fire, she said—­”

Gabriella’s face, above her starched collar with its neat red tie, was slowly flooded with colour.  Her brown eyes shone golden under her dark lashes, and Mrs. Spencer told herself that the girl looked almost pretty for a minute.  “If she wasn’t so sallow, she’d be really good looking.”