Mother has lived for thirty years with father, and she doesn't know any more how he makes his money than you do at this minute." This was as lucid, she suspected, as George was ever likely to be on the subject, and, since he was becoming visibly annoyed, she abandoned her fruitless search for information.

After she was married there would be time and opportunity to find out all that she wanted to know; and even if he never told her anything more--well, she was quite accustomed to the masculine habit of never telling women anything more.

Her mother and Jane were as ignorant of finance as they had been in their cradles; Cousin Pussy spoke of the "tobacco business" as if it were a sacred mystery superior to the delicate feminine faculties; and while Gabriella was engaged to Arthur, he had fallen into the habit of gently reminding her that she "knew nothing of law." "Very well, dearest, I shan't bother you," she said cheerfully, "only, of course, I couldn't possibly leave mother with Jane and Charley.

She doesn't realize it, but she would be perfectly miserable." "She told me that leaving Richmond was like death to her." "That's only because she knows she's going," answered Gabriella, but her endeavour to explain her mother's habit of mind appeared to her to be so hopeless that she added unconvincingly: "You can't imagine how dependent she is on me.

Jane doesn't know how to manage her at all, though they are so much alike." "Well, of course, if we live at home--" "But you promised me we'd be to ourselves, George; you can't have forgotten it.