“Did George ask when I’d be at home?” inquired Gabriella.

Though she knew that it was unwise to divert her mother’s attention from the main narrative, her whole body ached with the longing to hear what George had said of her, and she felt that it was impossible to resist the temptation to question.

“He said something about you as he was going away, but I can’t remember whether he asked when you would be in or not.”  In spite of the fact that Mrs. Carr had the most tenacious memory for useless detail, she was never able to recall the significant points of an interview.

“He didn’t ask where I was?”

The question was indiscreet, for it jerked Mrs. Carr’s mind back with violence from its innocent ramble into the past, while it reminded her of Gabriella’s present unladylike occupation.  She shut her lips with soft but obstinate determination, and Gabriella, watching her closely, told herself that “wild horses couldn’t drag another word out of her mother to-night.”  The girl longed to talk it over; but she might have tried as successfully to gossip with the angel on a marble tombstone.  She wanted to hear what George had said, to ask how he was looking, and to wonder aloud why he had come back.  She wanted to throw herself into her mother’s arms and listen to all the little important things that filled the world for her.  If only the aloof virtue in Mrs. Carr’s face would relax into a human expression!

Taking off her hat, Gabriella went into the bedroom, and then, coming back again after a short absence, remarked with forced gaiety:  “I suppose he didn’t have anything interesting to tell you, did he?”

“No.”  Though the light had almost waned, Mrs. Carr broke off a fresh piece of thread and leaned nearer the window, while she tried to find the eye of the needle.

“Let me thread your needle, mother.  It is too late to work, anyway.  You will ruin your eyesight.”

“I have never considered my eyesight, Gabriella.”

“I know you haven’t, and that’s why you ought to begin.”

As it was really growing too dark to see, Mrs. Carr rolled the thread back on the spool, stuck the needle into the last buttonhole, and folding the infant’s dress on which she was working, laid it away in her straw work-basket.

“Will you light the gas, Gabriella?”

“Don’t work any more to-night, mother.  It is almost supper time.”

Without replying, Mrs. Carr moved with her basket to a chair under the chandelier.  Once seated there, she unfolded the dress, took the needle from the unfinished buttonhole, and tried again unsuccessfully to run the thread through the eye.  Then, while Gabriella rushed to her aid, she removed her glasses and patiently polished them on a bit of chamois skin she kept in her basket.

“Don’t you feel as if you could eat a chop to-night, mother?”

“I haven’t been able to swallow a morsel all day, Gabriella.”