I will get a place in a store and work my fingers to the bone, if only Jane will never go back." For a moment there was silence; but while Gabriella waited for somebody to answer, she felt that it was a silence which had become vocal with inexpressible things.

The traditions of Uncle Meriweather, the conventions of Mrs.Carr, the prejudices of Jimmy, and the weak impulses of Jane, all these filled the dusk through which the blank faces of her family stared back at her.

Then, while she stood white and trembling with her resolve--with the passionate desire to give herself, body and soul, to Jane and to Jane's children--the voice of Experience spoke pleasantly, but firmly, through Cousin Pussy's lips, and it dealt with Gabriella's outburst as Experience usually deals with Youth.
"You are a dear child, Gabriella," it said; "but how in the world could you help Jane by going into a store ?" In the midst of the emotional scene, Cousin Pussy alone remained sweetly matter-of-fact.

Though she was not without orderly sentiments, her character had long ago been swept of heroics, and from her arched gray hair, worn la Pompadour, to her pretty foot in its small neat boot, she was a practical soul who had as little use for religious ecstasy as she had for downright infidelity.

There seemed to her something positively unnatural in Gabriella's manner--a hint of that "sudden conversion" she associated with the lower classes or with the negroes.
"You are a dear child," she repeated, biting her fresh lips; "but how will you help Jane by going into a store ?" "I can trim hats," returned Gabriella stubbornly.