toun to withdraw his allowance, to force
Gabrielle to abandon her child to have it from want? I verily believe,
had it not been for that precious babe, she would have begged her bread,
and suffered me to do so, rather than be dependent on the
scantily-doled-out bounty of Mr. Erminstoun.

During the twelve months that elapsed after her husband's death there
was a "great calm" over Gabrielle--a tranquillity, like that exhibited
by an individual walking in sleep. I had expected despair and passion
when her lofty spirit was thus trampled to the dust; but no, as I have
said, she was strangely tranquil--strangely silent. There was no
resignation--that is quite another thing; and, except when my sister
listened to Mr. Dacre, she never read her Bible, or suffered me to read
it to her: but his deep, full, rich voice, inexpressibly touching and
sweet in all its modulations, ever won her rapt, undivided attention.
She attended the church where he officiated; and though the Erminstouns
had a sumptuously-decorated pew there, it was not to that the young
widow resorted; she sat amid the poor in the aisle, beneath a
magnificent monument of the Treherne family, where the glorious sunset
rays, streaming through the illuminated window, fell full upon her
clustering golden hair and downcast eyes.

There was pride in this, not humility; and Gabrielle deceived herself,
as, with a quiet grace peculiarly her own, she glided to her lowly seat,
rejecting Lord Treherne's proffered accommodation, as he courteously
stood with his pew door open, bowing to the fair creature as if she had
been a queen. The five Misses Erminstoun knelt on their velvet cushions,
arrayed in feathers and finery, and strong in riches and worldly
advantages; but my pale sister, in her coarsely-fashioned mourning-garb,
seated on a bench, and kneeling on the stone, might have been taken for
the regal lady, and they her plebeian attendants.

Spiteful glances they cast toward Gabrielle, many a time and oft, when
my Lord Treherne so pointedly paid his respectful devoirs; and there was
as much pride and haughtiness in Gabrielle's heart as in theirs. Poor
thing! she said truly, that "early shadows had darkened her soul," and
what had she left but _pride_? Not an iota of woman's besetting
littleness had my sister--noble, generous, self-denying, devoted where
she loved; her sweetness had been poisoned, nor had she sought that
fountain of living water which alone can purify such b