She had always liked clothes; her taste was naturally good; and as she followed eagerly from shop to shop, she recalled the three months she had spent in Brandywine's millinery department, and the rudiments of a trade she had learned there.

"I'd rather design my next gown myself," she said one day to Mrs.Fowler, while they were looking at French models in the establishment of Madame Dinard, who had been born an O'Grady.

"I know I can do better than these, and besides I shan't meet duplicates of myself every time I go out." That night she dreamed of hats and gowns, and the next morning she drew pictures of them in coloured chalk.

"It's the only talent I ever had," she remarked gaily to her mother-in-law, "and it is running to waste." Madame, who regarded the sketches with uncompromising disdain, showed great interest in the practical application of Gabriella's ideas to the dressing of Mrs.Fowler.
"Yes, you have undoubtedly ideas," she said, discarding in her enthusiasm the accent she had spent twenty years in acquiring, "and there is nothing so rare in any department--in any walk of life--as ideas.

You have style, too," she pursued admiringly, turning her eyes on Gabriella's figure in one of her Parisian models.