Vashti's Fate — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

7 2 Pa syn 8 Os A AS or : * H A’ = kel hur be er? 7 = = Bo ato 2 hos ee or 4 ~~ 2 “6 ar al 1 o{= ~~ ti es er ¥ RECONCILED, — 167 fond of a tussle, and caring rather more for a nice bit ot mischief than for his tasks.” | He came home at midsummer, taller by some inches, slender as a forest sapling, a gay, dashing, beautiful boy, but impatient of the least restraint, uncurbed as a wild colt, inclined to consider himself the representative of his family, and to put on airs accordingly. He tormented Vashti, tyrannized over Nora, played tricks on Mr. Percy Dascomb, and managed to give Aunt Margery a piece of his mind on several occasions. The whole house was riot and confusion while he staid; and yet, strange to tell, everybody was sorry when he had gone. In the fall Leon Brownlee came again for a few days, getting but a cool welcome from Margery Gresham, but bringing cheer to Nora, setting her straight on a good many knotty points, and getting the heartache himself as he saw how thin, and changed, and toil-worn the child had grown. The evening. before he left he followed Miss Gresham to her own room, and forced her to hold converse with him by the sheer persistency of his determination. In brief and pointed language he told her that she was all wrong in her system of repression and reserve; that she was killing Nora Everleigh by taking all sunshine away from her. ‘“She wants companionship and kindness, Margery. You are stunting her, morally and physically. Do you think a child like that has no sympathies, no feeling? Give her agreeable occupation—-not study merely, but: something that will occupy her heart and'hands as well as her mind.” ‘“What ails the child, Leon?” said Margery, touched, in spite of her resentment toward him, by this unexpected ge comicbooks