San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-01

uOllB u.
But Mr.. Warrington shrugged his
shoulders little, nevertheless.
MIR. Warrington, wonder what yOu
would have done If you had been born
the son of blacksmith"
This rude suggestion of course came
from Gabrielle, and it brought the color
to the young mans face, for the Walk
ingtOnS prided themselves on the blue
blood in their veins.
Il am afraid / have never tried to i'm
agine myself in that position" he said
dryIy.
know-just as l might have been the
Jew. wonder what you would have
and taken orders, / don't think you
visits to the cottage at home; do you
think you would?" asked Gabrielle.
II hope that, in whatever station
had been born, 1 should have obeyed
the divine command to honor my par
ents.'
This was said very stifiy. in a cleri-
cal tone.
"Yes-but you would have liked best
to honor them at distance, wouldn't
your You would have found it much
nicer to obey the Divine command in
your study here at the parsonage than
if you were sitting with them in their
kitchen.-somewher in the midland
counties, suppose?"
Gabrielle, my dear." exclaimed Aunt
Susan, ScandaliZed.
But Gabrielle unluckily knew what
license her tongue might take with Mr..
Warrington. She knew that she might
laugh at him, and speak scornfully to
him to-day, and send him away with his
face burning at her ridicule, and that,
if she chose to look at him, he would
come back to her to morrow. There
fore, when Aunt Susan exclaimed, "Oh,
Gabrielle!" Gabrielle proceeded with
her speech as compOSedly as if Miss
Dunstan had said nothing.
Don't you think you would?" she
said. "You wouldn't find that sitting
in the kitchen with them did much to
quicken your filial feelings? You
wouldn't like the smell of the boiled
beans and bacon, nor the porridge they
might give you for breakfast instead of
your coffee and toasted mullins? And
when you came back here to the parsOn-
age, perhaps you wouldn't tell many
people in the parish where you had
beenp Perhaps obeyirg the divine
command wouldn't seem to you quite
to include the necessity of telling any
of us that you had father or mother
at alp"
The girl was sitting in one Of her
luxurious favOrite chairs as she made
her speech, sitting there, careless and
audacious, with her idle hands before
her. She wanted somebody who had
authority over her to be present and
make her hold her tongue, but Mr.. Dun
stan was the only person who had au-
thority over her, and Mr.. Dunstan was
not here.
There would not have been so much
offense in her words if they had been
spoken in play, but they were not more
than half spoken in play, and, more
over, there was too much truth in them
(which was the defense, although an
untenable one. that she herself would
have made for speaking them at ally for
the young man to listen to them with
out wincing. The color was still in his
face as he replied
"You are at liberty, of course, to sup
pose anything you please. / shall never
have it in my power-unfOrtunate
perhaps-to prove that in this instance
what you think is either right or wrong.
/ don't know, however, that need be
ashamed of saying frankly that | am
Qldd [ am not blacksmith's son."
''Oh, as far as that goes we are quite
at one. lam glad too that my mother.
was not a washerwoman," answer
ed Gabrielle with perfect sweetness.
Though still, you know, that doesn't
touch the root of the matter, which is.
whether you would have behaved as
well as George Gilbert is doing if you
had been in his place, -whether you
would have gone and hammered out
horeshoes, 1 mean, and spent your MORN
ings in your fathers forge"
The young man had risen up to take
his departure after he had spoken last.
Are you going?" she said, and held
out her hand to the white aristocratic
hand he offered her, with diamond
ring on its little finger. II suppose,
you know, the first difficulty in your
case would have been that you couldn't
have hammered out horseshOeS,n she
said, with the slightest delicate touch
in her tone of feminine scOrn.
And then Mr.. Warrington make his
adieux with the angry blood tingling in
his veins,-and good Aunt Susan, as
soon as he was gone, fell to administer
ing one of those feeble, kindly, impO-
tent lectures of hers, at which self
wiled Gabrielle always laughed.
eFor if say what is true, why should
I not say itp" the girl would constantly
ask. "And what right has a finical,
fine gentleman like that to sheer at the
roughness of such a man as George
Gilbert?" she exclaimed to-day. HE
may be as rough as a bear, for anything
I know hut whateypr be is he has