Gratia's Trials — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

14 GRATIA’'S TRIALS. ‘¢Oh, Gratia, I can’t sleep,” pleaded the child. ‘‘ The moon - shines so bright and the music sounds so sweet. ‘‘ Let’s goand peep into the windows and see them dance.” For one of the first ‘‘hops” of the season was in progress. And Gratia, not unwilling to catch a fleeting glance at the show of fashion as it careered by, dressed the little girl in a loose, white wrapper and tied a pink satin hood over her head, and they went out on the balcony. | There was a crowd-round the open parlor casements, but Gratia Kempfield and her little charge contrived, through the good office of one of the waiters, to secure a cozy nook where, themselves unseen, they could watch the waltzers whisk by to the inspiriting strains of the band. ‘‘Gratia!” exclaimed the child, almost involuntarily, after they had been looking at the dancers for some time, ‘‘ why don’t you go in and dance? ‘There is not a girl there so pretty as you are.” Gratia smiled and blushed. ‘You think so, because you love me, Ida,” she returned. ‘“No, it’s really so,” gravely pronounced the little critic, ‘You are a great deal prettier than my Aunt Alberta, who has so many bouquets, and drives, and beaus. Uncle Rob said last week -that you would be a beauty if you only had opportunity. What does opportunity mean ?” ‘‘What I haven't got, and .never shall have,” merrily re- sponded Gratia, yee Ida, it’s petting late, and we must go back to our nest again.’ Ida climbed obediently down from her seat ; somehow she ~ never thought of rebelling against Gratia’s pixie. decrees. ‘“But I'm not sleepy,” she insisted ; ‘‘I can’t go to sleep, unless you lie down on the bed beside me, and sing about the little child—-Jesus—in the manger,” ‘T will, then,” said Gratia, drawing the child’s arm through hers. And Gratia, with her cheek on the same pillow as Ida’s, « comicbooks-co