Gratia's Trials — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

——— GRATIA’S TRIALS. 179 ladies, but Gratia told her, calmly, that she did not wish for it now. ‘Just as you please, my dear,” said the old lady. ‘‘I don’t myself believe in young girls having too much to say to grand gentlemen, although far be it from me to breathe a word against the colonel, as has been a honored guest of Sir Hugh's and my lady. And besides all that, Hendon, the butler, did say—though, o course, you and me know what servants’ gossip amount to—that our Miss Alicia and the colonel were great friends, and asked me what would I think if Miss Melworth went to America to live after all.” Gratia was silent ; for the instant she cou/d_ not have spoken. ‘“You haven't seen Miss Alicia?” said Mrs. Hopwith, proudly. ‘‘I must make an errand for you to Marguerite, her maid, some day, just to let you get a peepof her. The prettiest creetur you ever set eyes on.” ‘<Ts she fair or dark?” Gratia asked, in a low voice, scarcely able to account for the sharp pang of jealousy that shot through her heart at Mrs. Hopwith’s words. ‘¢ As fair as a lily, with cheeks like one o’ them big damask roses, and hair that shines and glitters just like sunshine, ” So Mrs. Hopwith wandered on, and poor Gratia thought she never would have done, but just then she was called away by the butler. And the passionate fountain of tears that burst from her eyelids, and the burning sensation at her heart, told Gratia the secret she had long refused to acknowledge to her- self—that she loved Hugo Falconer. ‘‘T am a fool—a mad, silly, dreaming fool,” she told herself. ‘‘But I can at least hide my folly in my own breast. I wil live it down.” And conscious that solitude and opportunity to indulge in thought and memory were her worst enemies, Gratia hurried away to Mrs. Hopwith to beg for some employment, however uncongenial, wherewith to occupy her fingers and brain. Eomicbooks.co m