Only when she smiled her face grew as young as her eyes, and with the powdering of silver on her hair, gave her a look of radiance and charm; but at other times, when she was grave or preoccupied with the management of Dinard's, the "set look" that Miss Polly dreaded hardened her mouth.
"I wish you could go easier now for a while," resumed the little seamstress, after a pause which she had filled with vague speculations about Gabriella's sentimental prospects.

"I just hate like anything to see you wearing yourself out.

Of course I'd like you to own part of the business, and I can't help thinkin' that the judge could get you the money as easy as not.

It ain't as if you couldn't pay him the interest regular, is it ?" she pursued with the financial helplessness of a woman who has never thought in terms of figures.

"You couldn't be doin' any better, could you?
There ain't anybody can run the business as well as you do, I don't care who 'tis." "I sometimes think," returned Gabriella deliberately, while she draped a lace bertha on a white silk frock she was making for Fanny, "that I will try to borrow the money." "It couldn't hurt, could it ?" "No, I don't suppose it could hurt." Her eyes were on the lace, which she was adjusting over the shoulder, and Miss Polly followed her gaze with a look which was not entirely approving.
"There ain't a bit of sense in your wearin' yourself out over that child," said the seamstress presently, with so sharp an accent that Gabriella glanced up quickly from her work.