Gratia's Trials — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

GRATIA’S TRIALS, 41 ‘Tra! Ira! just think what you’re saying, dear.” Gratia turned quickly to her. ‘‘I do not want your intercession, Almira Basen |" she uttered. ‘‘ Be silent !” “Well, I declare !” said old Johnson, ‘‘if that ’are ain't what I call downright ingratitood! The gal don’t know her friends when she sees ’em !” “Yes, Ido, Mr. Johnson,” said Gratia, trying to calm her quivering voice, ‘‘and that woman is not among the number. She is doing her best to ruin me, and she may succeed, but she will not blind me by her arts and pretenses.” Mrs. Kempfield’s eyes flashed vindictively, but her soft tones never varied as she responded : ‘You'll be sorry for what you are saying yet, Gratia. But I’'}] not lay it up against you.” | ‘“There, there!” said Joe Johnson, good-naturedly. ‘I swow, I’m most as sorry as if I hadn’t found the bill. But Gratia’s young, and everybody knows one swallow doesn’t make asummer. Let's all keep our own counsel about this ere, and nobody'll be nous the wiser. I dare say it’ll be a lesson to the gal, and ‘«Stop, Mr. Johnson!” resolutely faterinesd Gratia. ‘‘I swear to you that I am as ignorant of how that bill came into my possession as the tiniest babe that breathes on God’s earth this day. And if I lay on my dying-bed I would still say the same.” Joe Johnson sorrowfully shook his grizzled head. ‘‘T’d believe you if I could, Gratia,” he said, ‘‘ but the facts speak out too plain. And you'd best remember that there never was a fault patched over yet by lyin’ about it.” For the rest of that week Gratia Kempfield’s position in the household was that of an ostracized person. Both Mr. Kemp- field and her step-mother avoided her as if she had a sort of moral plague-spot upon her; and when necessity com- pelled them to come in contact with her, they spoke as little as comic 900 (e(o) =