There was still the cheerful hour with the children (that she had kept up in the busiest seasons); but when the question of going out was discussed at dinner, she usually ended by sending the children to a lecture or a harmless play with Miss Polly.
"When you work as hard as I do, there isn't much else for you in life," she concluded regretfully, and there swept over her, as on that May afternoon, a sense of failure, of dissatisfaction, of disappointment.
Youth was slipping, slipping, and she had missed something.
At such moments she thought sadly of her life, of its possibilities and its significance.

It ought in the nature of things, she felt, to mean so much more than it had meant; it ought to have been so much more vital, so much more satisfying and complete.

As it was, she could remember of it only scattered ends, frayed places, useless beginnings, and broken promises.

With how many beliefs had she started, and now not one of them remained with her--well, hardly one of them! The dropping of illusion after illusion--that was what the years had brought to her as they passed; for she saw that she had always been growing farther and farther away from tradition, from accepted opinions, from the dogmas and the ideals of the ages.

The experience and the wisdom of others had failed her at the very beginning.
At the end of the week, when she and Miss Polly were watering seeds in the yard one afternoon at sunset, the man from the first floor came leisurely up the walk, and removing a big black cigar from his mouth, wished them "good evening" as he passed.
"Good evening," responded Gabriella coolly.