Obeying unconsciously some inherited strain of prudence in her nature, she had sacrificed her temper on the solid altar of business expediency.
"Somebody has to be on time, I guess," replied Miss Smith snappishly.
"I'd like to know who would be here if I wasn't ?" She was a thin, soured, ugly little woman, with an extraordinary capacity for work, and an excess of nervous vitality bordering on hysteria.

Gabriella, who knew something of her story, was aware of the self-sacrificing goodness of her private life, and secure in her own unclouded cheerfulness, could afford to smile tolerantly at the waspish sting.
"It's a pity we can't get more system here," she observed, for Miss Smith, she knew, was no tale-bearer.

"The waste of time and misdirected energy are appalling.

The business would be worth three times as much to anybody who could give her whole attention to it, but, as Madame is forever telling us, her health keeps her from really overlooking things." "I wonder why she doesn't sell out ?" asked Miss Smith, suddenly good-humoured and interested.

"There's a lot in it for the right person, and it isn't in nature that she can hold on much longer.