San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-06

be wild enough TO DO TINS Ioonsn Uning,
and the thought had not been pleasant
to him. But-"She's safe enough" he
said to himself after this little squabble.
The child is an irredeemable fiirt, but
II she never gets to care for Leigh
Warrington more than she does now,
he'll not give us much trouble"-which
was comfortable conclusion perhaps
for Mr.. Dunstan to come to, but posi-
bly, not one altogether so consolatory to
the young clergyman.
twas the case with Gabrielle in a
very strong degree that she became this
thing or that according as she was acted
upon by the people who came in con-
tact with her. Involuntarily and I'M
consciously she changed under differ
ent influences. There was good deal
of sensitiveness and quickness of SYM
pathy in her; she had very distinctly,
too, higher and lower nature, and it
was not much of that higher nature
which had ever been touched by Mr..
Warrington. She had been simply
drawn toward him by her vanity. He
admired her. and she liked to be admir-
ed, and, against her better instincts,
she submitted to his admiration, and
half encouraged it, and let herself be
flattered by it, partly despising herself
for what she was doing all the time, and
cOnfessing her contempt in the sharp
ness and indifference of her manner to
him, and yet not despising herself
enough to resolve to end this ignoble
game, because she had so little to do,
and it helped to pass the time.
But he knewher as a coquette, and
he knew her as nothing else, and if he
was in love with her las to certain eX-
tent he was) he was not so much in love
that, if some one had said to him sud-
denly-"You may have her for the ask
ing" it is quiet certain he aDould have
asked her. Most likely he would, but
he would not have done it with an I'M
divided mind, nor with a perfectly clear
conscience. Happily she had done less
injury to him than she might have done.
He had often wished to himself before
now that he had never seen her; and if
he had loved her entirely, let what
might have come OF his loving. he would
never have that wish, l suppose.
The different parts of Gabrielle's
character did not harmonic together,
did not sympathize with each other,
seemed often in direct opposition one
to the other. She was hard and flip
pant to Mr.. Warrington; she could be
tender and reverent when she was with
Esther Hill and the hardness, and the
tenderness, the flippancy and the rever-
ence, were all alike IN her, and natural
to her. She was willful, too, in a strong
degree. and yet to some people she was
as Obedient as child; she was indolent
and yet energetic; fiery, yet often cold
and indifferent Sometimes her own
moods changed her; more often the in
fluenee of different people changed her.
She had not strength of character
enough, suppose, to be anything sole
ly, or anything long. She was not of
much use in the world-unless you i'm
agine that she and the slight impress
siOnable people like her are useful as
clay for the higher part of the creation
to mold. They serve their purpose so.
perhaps. And then, too, somewhere
down in the bottom of their hearts,
some Of these women, who seem on the
surface as soft as wax, have something
true as steel and strong as iron in them.
You don't always reach to it;-some-
times no one ever reaches to it; but in
good many instances it has happened, l
think, that somebody has come upon it
in an hour of need, and has honOred it,
and blessed God that he has found it,
all his life after.
SIS Gabrielle so shallow, do you
think? Well-so has the bed of many
a river been shallow, through which, in
time, deep enough channel has been
cut, for that" some one said of her
once.