Gratia's Trials — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

i aoe GRATIA'S TRIALS. ~ He held up the little box with the red-crossed bill stil] lying wedged at its bottom. : Gratia, feeling as people sometimes feel in the bondage of a hideous dream, beheld this silent witness to her guilt. From thence she looked first at the faces of her father and the old peddler—then at that of Almira. Mrs. Kempfield was stand- ing with the corners of her mouth demurely drawn down, and a look of hypocritical regret upon her face, but Gratia could see the glitter of malicious triumph beneath her scanty black eyelashes, and in an instant she comprehended it all. ‘‘This is your doing !” she cried out to her step-mother. But Ira Kempfield grasped her arm as if in a vise of iron. | ‘“‘Hold your tongue, girl!” he thundered. ‘‘How dare ~~ you speak so to one who has been only too good and consider- ate of you! I'll shake the teeth out of your head if you ven- _ture to breathe another such word !” ‘‘ Hush, dear !” said Mrs. Kempfield, laying a soothing hand on her husband’s wrist ; ‘‘ never mind me—I’m used to Gratia’s ingratitude. Only I am sorry that your daughter should be proved a thief. I've tried to hide her faults in the best way I : could, but——” j ‘- A—thief !” slowly repeated Ira, still retaining a grasp of his { daughter's arm that made her shudder and turn pale with pain. ‘“Yes—that’s the word. That’s exactly what she is !” ‘Father |” He pushed her violently from him. ‘‘T ain't an angel like Almira !” he exclaimed. ‘‘I ain’t one that finds new names for ugly things, and it kind o’ breaks me down to know that my gal is a common thief, and a liar besides, My home ain't no place for such as her /” ‘*Sho, sho!” cried the old peddler, in genuine astonishment and distress. ‘* You wouldn’t turn your own flesh and blood out of doors, Ira Kempfield ?” And the step-mother interposed with a show of sympathy and gentleness. comiecbooks.co ‘3