"How could it have been otherwise?" she said.
Yet the thought would arise that she might have made it different to the boys at least; but she comforted herself that next day, things would be better, and she, occupied with the great work of her life, would be happier also. Yet even in her dreams the question arose, Was that the work which Harry had said "angels might envy"? Was she really going by it to help on the "kingdom of God"?
[CHAPTER IV.]
LA BELLE GABRIELLE.
"All hearts do pray, God love her!
Ay, and always, in good sooth,
We may all be sure he doth."
THE summer sunshine, which was lighting up with renewed beauty the woods in the neighbourhood of the Grove, and painting in exquisite colours, as with the finger of God, the flowers in many gardens, fell only feebly in some of the narrow dingy streets in the great over-crowded cities.
A few rays only had found entrance into one house in a narrow street in the town of Birmingham; but those rays were joyously welcomed by the inmates of the dwelling.
"See, maman," said a bright-looking young girl about the same age as Priscilla Warner, "said I not ere long the sun would be round here to cheer us up? Only see!" And as she spoke, she drew up the blind.
The lady whom the girl addressed as mother looked up with a smile from the couch on which she was reclining.
"'Tis well, Gabrielle," she said, in a sweet tone, though with a foreign accent, "that thou canst look out for sunshine and make the most of it when it shines, only too seldom in this triste contrée. And truly everything looks dark just now—my long illness, the boys' education, the expense of having to keep a nurse for the babe, and, now that the long holidays have begun, your father having so few pupils; and then, though we have not too much sunshine, yet the air feels sultry and the house close, and—"