Gratia's Trials — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

wa ‘ GRATIA’S TRIALS. | 67 from: the esplanade to the shore. Close to where Gratia stood waiting for her pitcher of sea-water, a stylish nurse-maid, in a flounced muslin dress, a broad, striped sash, and a fluted mus- lin cap, was carrying on a flirtation with a bather. ‘Indeed, Miss Natalie, it’s true.” he asserted. ‘‘ This air does give you the most charming color !” | ‘Oh, I know just how much to believe of what you men say |” asserted Natalie, with a coquettish flirt of the parasol she held. ‘‘ I’ve been before where—mercy on us! What’s that?” “That” was a wild, choking cry from the surf. The little’ lame child, who had been placed under the tender guardian- ship of Miss Natalie, had strayed farther and farther down the shingly, sloping floor of the beach, until she had been thrown down by the violence of a heavier billow than had hitherto rolled shoreward, and now lay shrieking at the mercy. of the merciless tides. ‘Oh, good gracious !” screamed Natalie, wringing her hands, ‘¢She’s drowned ! she’s drowned !” The bather sprang toward the spot with a smothered cry, but Gratia was before him. Heedless of her own light summer clothing, and the cruel, chilly rush of the waves, which flung tides of surf over her, she had rushed into the water aud caught the child—a little girl of seven or eight years old—in her arms, and boldly stemmed the receding wave. ‘¢Hush !” she murmured, soothingly, to the screaming child ; ‘‘hush, dear—you are quite safenow. See, we are clear up on the shore, and now I'll take you to the hotel for some nice, warm, dry clothes. Tell me which your room is.” | ‘©T’m Ida,” said the child, through her hysterical sobs. ‘Where is Natalie? Natalie told me not to bother when I asked her to come, too. Oh, I thought I was drowned !” It takes very little to create a sensation at a place like Long Branch, and in a second almost, as it seemed, the shores, that had seemed comparatively deserted, were all a-swarm. The wild rumor that ‘‘a child was drowned” had somehow swept Eomicbooks (E(@ im