The Price He Paid — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

A PLAIN TALK. 39 him for whose sake it had been undertaken, entirely ~ into the back-ground. She allowed the little ones to lead her into the small garden which was attached to the lodge, and was entirely distinct from the Castle-garden proper. She admired with them the shrubs and flower-beds, and the three rapidly advanced in intimacy. In less than aquarter of an hour a game was set on foot, accompanied by all the requisite noise, to which Miss _ Gabrielle contributed fully as much as her young playmates. She bounded after them over the beds, stimulating them to fresh efforts, and provoking them to ever-renewed gayety. . Unbecoming as this no doubt was in a young lady of seventeen, and in the governor’s niece, to an un- prejudiced beholder the spectacle was none the less charming. | The baroness, looking down from her point of observation, was struck with horror at her daugh- ter’s indecorous conduct especially when she became aware that Raven was intently following the scene below. What must that haughty man, that severe stickler for etiquette, think of the education of a young lady who could comport herself in this free- and-easy manner before his eyes? The baroness, apprehending some of those stinging, sarcastic comments in which her brother-in-law was wont to indulge, sought, as much as in her lay, to mitigate the ill impression. | “Gabrielle is wonderfuly childish still at times,” she lamented. “It is impossible to make her under- stand that such babyish ways are highly unsuitable in a young lady of her age. I almost dread her first appearance in society—which had to be postponed a year in consequence of her father’s death. She is quite capable of behaving in that wild, reckless way in a drawing-room.” . “Let the child be natural while she may,” said the baron, his eyes still fixed on the group below. “She will learn soon enough to be a lady of fashion. It would really be a pity to check her now; the girl is a very sunbeam incarnate.” _ The baroness pricked up her ears. It was the a Gomicbooks