San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-03

not TO ner seem easy-to ma amuse-
ment at Wrexham. There was, indeed,
her uncle Guy To entertain her, and she
cared far more for her uncle Guy than
she did for MI. WalkingtOn, but Mr.,
Dunstan, you know, did not bestow
quite an equal regard on her. She spent
a good deal of her time with him, but
she spent it so mainly-as she well knew
herself-on sufferance. He did not love
her particularly, nor desire her COM
pany; he only submitted to her, and
acquiesced with good-humor when she
imposed herself upon him.
Come with me? YeS-come with
me, if you like-if it will keep you out
of mischief, - heused to say to her some-
times when she offered, as she was in
the habit of doing, to accompany him
in his walks or drives; and il she accept
ed these invitations-which, rough as
they were, she usually did-she used to
accept them with a sort of soreness,
though at the same time not without a
lurking half belief in her that in spite
of all unflattering speeches, her uncle
at the bottom of his heart liked her
company, and would rather have her
pretty hand upon his arm, and her dis
turbing voice in his ears as he tramped
along the country road than have taken
his walks there in solitude. She even
used to tell him so at times, and he
would laugh al herin answer, and would
never by any chance allow that she was
right; but. yet in a certain sense she ,DdS
right, for the teasing presence of the
girl had a sort of familiar pleaSantness
to him, so that probably, if she had
anpaa about l,n, lner thar eha I,l &c hnr
own accord, he would have begun to
call her to come, not because he partic-
ularly wanted her, but as he might have
called some young pet puppy who was
sure to be a torment and a charge to
him in his walk from first to last, but
yet whom nevertheless he would take
kindness of nature, and because the
creature liked it.
So,-because Gabrielle liked it, and
because the man, rough as he often was
in speech, had a considerable tenderness
of heart that made most of his acts the
very reverse of rough or selfsh,-he
used to let her at her will attach herself
to him, and fall into the habit of throw
ing herself upon him for companion
ship. They used to take many a walk
together; he rode, too, and she used to
ride with him. He let her do what she
liked to a large extent, submitting to
her feminine humOrs and unreasonable
nesses of every sort with an imperturb-
able good humor and indifference such
as a %rhinoceros might be supposed to
show under a shower of small pebbles,
simply going his own way the while,
and letting her whiZ about him as she
pleased.
And whiz about him she did, though
his indifference sometimes made her
sore,-unhappily, she had a way of TAX
ing offense when he preferred other
peoples company to hers, and he often
preferred other peoples company to
hers. He would often when she went
out with him call at the Gilberts' to try
if he could get George Gilbert to accom-
pany them in their walk; and she would
always resent his doing this, and would
sometimes openly oppose 1t; but he
would do it nevertheless.
"Nhy do you come if YOU don't like
George Gilbert?" he would say to her.
II want to see him-but, if yOu don't,
why don't you stay at homer"
But if, as happened once or twice, she,
being hurt at the roughness of some
such address, would make a feint lit was
never much more than that of letting
him go without her. then that ready
kindness of nature of his would be pref
ty sure to make a quick amends for the
rough speech, and
Come away!n he would call to her.
"If you don't like George Gilbert. you
ought to be taught to like him. 1t will
do you more good to hear what he says
than to listen to what most other peo-
pie say in the parish"
And so, under this educational pre-
text, he would draw the affectedly re-
luctant little hand into his arm, and
would pat it perhaps when it had got
there with a sort of reconciliatory half
tenderness.
1t was in this way that, as the sum-
mel went on, Gabrielle came to see a
good deal of Mr.. Gilbert,-though for
the most part she saw him under pro-
test. Not that she had any very strong
objection to him, only she used to think
he spoilt their walks. She thought this
because she was not at ease with him,
and did not know how to become at
ease; and because at the bottom of her
heart she was not quite sure that she
would have to be at ease, even If she had
known how. For at the bottom of her
heart Gabrielle, like the majority of
women, was an %aristocrat, and she could
not forget the obtrusive fact of George
Gilbert's birth. He might be what he
liked intellectually, but socially he was
old Gilbert the blacksmith's son; and
not a gentleman born. And so, not be-
ing a gentleman born, she took it into
her head that she did not know how to
treat him. The ugly fact made her shy
of him; it made her shrink from the
thought of seeming to be on equal terms
with him. She did not rant to be on
equal terms with him; she would have
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