Year: 1876

"She was a fair-fsced, slight


blue eyes, graceful, shy, with moth
Ing Of her father about her appear.


ance or characteristics, and after a


few days / came home, not in love


with my ward, as you suspect, but


thinking her pure, innocent child,


wonderfully born OF such father,


and really not dissatisfied with my


guardianship.


"In fact my charge was no bur-


den to me while Miss Patience


lived, and the thirty thousand dol


lars made all clear for the future, I


imagined, with a mans wonderful


understanding of woman's needs /;


and so for three years tho time
| went placidly on; then there came


q note from Gabrielle herself, an


nouncing the serious illness Of her


aunt, and l went hastily into the


country.


81 found Miss Wyndham dying;
her noble sands Of life were almost
told, and there will be few purer
robes in Heaven than the one she


wears. She had no fear for her.


self in that passing away; only


great thought, reaching out into


the future, for the young girl whom
she must leave alone in a world
where even her sanity eyes had
seen much neither good nor true.


81 promised all that / could, and
while the dying woman seemed to
trust me, she understood better
than / how little to the protection
Of young girls life an unmarried
man can be, and was but half salts
fed when the final moment came.


"Poor Gabrielle was distracted; /;
she clung to me as a brother. ]
pitied her, but I pitied myself more,
because she took no thought, and !
did, of the future which now loom
ed up before me like o terrible
problem, to which the thirty thou
sand dollars offered not the slight
est clue Of solution.


"What to do with her now I did
not know. I had no near female
relative; I had not even the ira
ditional old nurse to help me out
of the dilemma. My business was
suffering from neglect, and yet I
could not leave this clinging, grief
stricken girl alone and unsettled
in this first space Of her desolatiou.


"I finally determined to ask
widow lady, who was distant rel
'tive of Halstead Scot, to take
charge of his daughter, but before
writing to her, ! thought 1t kind in
ne to consult my ward in the mat
.er, and learn II there were any
,ther arrangement possible more
to her own mind.





"She came to the interview look
ng most fair and fragile in her
black dress, and listened attentive
y to my proposition. Then the
ears which lay very near to her
yes in those sad days pushed their
vay from under the terse-drawn
,yelid., and rolled heavily over the
white young cheeks. and she said,
70 trembling, pitiful way:


"Then I can not live with you,
Mr.. Penrhynp


81 had rather pronounce the
ieath sentence in thousand cases
han he obliged again to meet the
that stared out of those
innocent eyes at me, but something
lad to be done then and there, and
had rather tried moderate strang-
,lation in my own person than to
nave explained to this pure child
he reasons why she might not live
n my house as my sister, when
here seemed no other home-no
heart in all the world that held for
her kindly feeling save mine.


$50. as / told you in the begin
hing, 1t seemed the only thing TO
10 at the time, I asked her, as gent
y and de!icately as / could, to mar
~ me.


ait came very sudden TO her.
and especially so to me; but she
not that she was greatly
IN love with me any more than
with her, but because her quiet,
life had taupht her