The Price He Paid — page 235: what you’re looking at

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

226 EXCITEMENT INCREASING. won all hearts to herself, was sincerely deplored. With her, sunshine had come into the house. Dur- ing the few short months of her stay there, she had filled the great somber spaces with hight and anima- tion, quickening and brightening their lifeless splendor. | Baron von Raven alone seemed insensible to the change; atleast, he neverin any way alluded to it, and it was well-known that he had little time to give to his home or family affairs. All about him were accustomed to see their master grave, taci- turn, and unmoved by passing events. Thus he still appeared, and yet every soul about the house knew thata tempest was fast gathering over his head. It had long ceased to be a secret. There had been no renewal of the disturbances in the town during the course of the last few weeks; andthe superintendent, with his staff of police, had easily put down the slight ebullitions of feeling which would now and then occur. The lower classes of the population had been intimi- dated; to the more enlightened reflection had come. The struggle was not abandoned; it grew, on the contrary, in force and intensity, though carried on in a quieter fashion; and now the city of R—— had the satisfaction of hearing that an echo of its discontent had sounded in the capital, an echo which quickly spread throughout the land. Win- terfeld’s pamphlet had produced a great sensation, a far greater, indeed, than its author had ever reckoned on, for it found acceptance in influential quarters, where none, and least of all the assessor, would have expected it to be tolerated. In these higher circles Raven was by no means beloved. A man who had raised himself from the more modest ranks of the middle classes to one of the highest offices of the State, he had naturally aroused against himself the envy and ill will of those whom he had overtaken and left far behind him in the race; and his proud, imperious bearing, the merciless contempt with which he exposed and thrust aside incapacity and meanness, wheresoever placed, did not tend to increase his popularity. The Eomichooks. co