Gratia's Trials — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

38 | GRATIA’S TRIALS. ‘‘ My girl may have her faults—I dare say she has—but she ain't no thief !” Joe shrank into a corner before the farmer's blazing eyes, but Mrs. Kempfield threw herself artfully into the breach. ‘‘Dear Ira, don’t be rash,” she purred. ‘‘Only you know Gratia did express a strong wish for just that sum of money— and since it has disappeared so unaccountably, there can be no harm in just looking into herroom. Only to satisfy ourselves, you know, and she need never know of it. Girls will do strange things sometimes, and you know, dear, Gratia is the strangest girl |” ‘‘Search her room at once,” said Ira, huskily. ‘‘She’s my daughter, and she shan‘ lie for a minute under no unjust sus- picion. I insist on havin’ an out-and-out search made this minute, if it’s only in justice to her.” ‘“T hain’t made no accusation,’ began the peddler, but m4 ‘<I don't care whether you have or not,” roared Ira Kemp- field. ‘‘Almira, come. Ill have my gal’s name cleared at once from the very shadow of a doubt.” ‘‘The three hurried at once to Gratia’s neat little room, just across the entry, and Ira tossed and tumbled everything about, with Joe Johnson standing at his side. ‘There !” he cried, with an accent of triumph, ‘‘I told you so. Weve looked everywhere.” As he spoke he opened the waShstand drawer, where Gratia kept a !ittle box containing a string of old gold beads which had belonged to her mother, a blue glass brooch, and one or two other comparatively valueless trinkets. He tumbled out the contents, and there, tightly folded, and laid in the very bot- — tom of the box, so that it still adhered after the other things were out, lay the twenty-dollar bill, with the cross. of red ink flaming up in full view. Eomicbooks.co =)