She saw her mother, worn to a shadow by the unnecessary deaths she had died, by the useless crucifixions she had endured; she saw Jane, haggard, wan, with her sweetness turning to bitterness because it was wasted; and again she found herself asking for balance, moderation, restraint.

The child, a little girl, with George's eyes and hair like gauze, had liberated Gabriella from the last illusions of her girlhood.
And yet, though Gabriella prayed for moderation, she found after a few months that motherhood was absorbing the full strength of her nature.
George hardly existed for her; he came and went like the passing of a shadow, and she began gradually to sink her life into the life of her child.

Not until the winter was she brought back to a sharp realization of her neglected duty to her mother; and this came with a letter from Mrs.Carr during the last week in January.

Mrs.Carr was still living with Jane, and though she had accepted mildly Gabriella's reasons for postponing her coming to New York, she was beginning somewhat plaintively to question.

She had made little effort to hide her disappointment at not being with her daughter when her grandchild was born, for, in spite of the fact that she had tragically assisted at the entrance of Jane's six children into the world, she still possessed an insatiable appetite for the perpetually recurring scenes of birth and death.