A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GABRIELLE. 35 In the twinkling of an eye, Gabrielle was surrounded. “A dance! A dance!” “I first, mademoiselle!” ao, af TY Gabrielle turned pale. This was more than she had bargained for, and she realized now the consequences of her folly. Dame Brigitte, purple with anger and with dishev- elled coiffe, attempted to push her way to her charge’s side, screaming: “Dance! She! A maid of honor!” Amidst jeering laughter the old dame was hustled incontinently aside. But deliverance was close at hand. Whipping his sword from its scabbard, Raoul thrust aside the vines and, leaping out, confronted the youth- ful persecutors. At sight of this dauntless Perseus with his stern eyes and gleaming rapier, the students—who, after all, were anything but dragons and had been impelled simply by a spirit of mischief—turned precipitately and took to their heels, their black gowns bulging out like the wings of a covey of pheasants alarmed at the approach of the hunter. Gabrielle, white and trembling, clung close to the duenna. Raoul sheathed his sword, doffed his hat, concealing as well as he could the sorrowful condition of its feath- ers, and, approaching the young girl, addressed her in his most courtly manner: “Mademoiselle, permit a poor chevalier to hope that you have sustained no injury at the hands of those young ruffians.” Gabrielle withdrew herself from the embrace of the Comichoo S (©)