elicts with the statelier dignities and the
more ephemeral gaieties of the opposite side. To be really "in society"
one must cross over, either for good and all, or in the dilapidated
"hack" which carried Gabriella to the parties of her schoolmates in West
Franklin Street.

For in the middle 'nineties, before social life in Richmond had become
both complicated and expensive, it was still possible for a girl in
Gabriella's position--provided, of course, she came of a "good
family"--to sew all day over the plain sewing of her relatives, and in
the evening to reign as the acknowledged belle of a ball. "Society," it
is true, did not reach any longer, except in the historic sense, to Hill
Street; but the inhabitants of Hill Street, if they were young and
energetic, not infrequently made triumphant excursions into "society."
Though Gabriella was poor and sewed for her living, she had been, from
the moment she left school, one of the most popular girls in town. To be
sure, she was neither so pretty as Florrie Spencer nor so clever as
Julia Caperton, but in the words of Julia's brother Algernon, she was
"the sort you could count on." Even in her childhood it had become the
habit of those about her to count on Gabriella. Without Gabriella, her
mother was fond of saying, it would have been impossible to keep a roof
over their heads.

Twelve years before, when they had moved into the house in Hill Street,
Mrs. Carr had accepted from Jimmy Wrenn the rent of the first floor and
the outside kitchen, which was connected with the back porch by a
winding brick walk, overgrown with wild violets, while the upper story
was let to two elderly spinsters, bearing the lordly, though fallen,
name of Peterborough. These spinsters, like Mrs. Carr, spent their lives
in a beautiful and futile pretence--the pretence of keeping up an
appearance. They also took in the plain sewing of their richer
relatives, who lived in Franklin Street, and sent them little trays of
sweet things as soon as the midday dinner was over on Sunday. Sometimes
they would drop in to see Mrs. Carr just before supper was ready, and
then they would pretend that they lived on tea and toast because they
were naturally "light eaters," and that they sewed all day, not for the
money, but because they liked to have "something to do with their hands"
They were tall thin women in organdie caps and black alpaca dresses made
with long basques which showed a greenish cast in the daylight.