CHAPTER IV.
MIRAGE On a bright Sunday in October Mrs.Carr stopped on her way from church to tell Mrs.Peyton of Gabriella's engagement.

A crape veil, slightly scented with camphor, hung from her bonnet, and in her gloved hands she carried a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums, for she intended to go on to Hollywood, where her husband was buried.

The sermon had been unusually inspiring, and there was a pensive exaltation in her look as she laid her hand on the gate of the walled garden.
"If it couldn't be Arthur--and of course my heart was set on her marrying Arthur--I suppose George is the one I should have chosen," she said to Mrs.Peyton with tender melancholy as she turned her soft, clammy cheek, which was never warm even in summer, to be kissed.
There was nothing against George that she could advance even to Gabriella.

He was well born, for his mother had been a Randolph; he was comfortably rich (at least his father was); he was good-looking; he was almost arrogantly healthy--yet because she was obliged to regret something, she found herself clinging fondly to the memory of Arthur.
"If it could only have been Arthur," she repeated sadly, gazing through the French window of the drawing-room to the garden where beds of scarlet sage flaunted brilliantly in the sunshine.
"I hope and pray that dear Gabriella will be happy," replied Mrs.
Peyton, a beautiful old lady, with wonderful white hair under the widow's ruching in her bonnet.

The exquisite simplicity of her soul was reflected in the rose-leaf delicacy of her skin, in her benignant and innocent smile, in the serene and joyous glance of her eyes.