"Fi donc, maman," said the girl with a silvery laugh. "What a list of woes you have given, the poor maman! But see! Hast thou not taught thy little Gabrielle to look at the mercies as well as at the trials of life? Now, then!"
And seating herself on a low stool near the couch, and taking the baby (which lay beside its mother) on her lap, she began playfully—
"True, thou art ill, and that is the worst of all the troubles; but the doctor says you are getting better. Then is it not good that the petits garcons are so well that they can be at school? And has not the nurse been a comfort to thee as well as an expense? And I do believe her coming saved the life of ma petite sœur, my little Jean—my Scotch lassie, as le père calls her, while I am his French one, his Gabrielle."
"And see, again, as to pupils. Well, 'tis a pity about that; but then papa is so clever, and paints so charmingly, that I am sure some day he will get a good appointment. And then, mother, we know le bon Dieu lives and cares for us. How often you have told us so! And only this morning, before he went out, papa said, 'We must trust the Lord—'"
"'He never yet forsook at need
The soul that trusted him indeed.'"
"God bless my little sunbeam," said Mrs. M'Ivor, as she drew her daughter into her arms, and in her native tongue (for by birth she was a French woman) called her many loving names.
Gabrielle M'Ivor, whose life was to exert an influence over more than one of the characters in our story, was indeed a lovable girl and fair to look at.
As yet small in stature, with the neatest of figures always set off to advantage by a dress of a perfect fit, simple and inexpensive, yet with an air of elegance about it that many of her companions in far more costly array strove to copy in vain. Her face, if not perfect in feature, was yet wonderfully bewitching, with its sparkling black eyes, so thoroughly French, and the wealth of hair, that glory of girlhood, so prettily arranged and contrasting so strikingly with the black eyes. For it was really golden, inherited from her Scotch father, though his undoubtedly inclined to the unromantic shade named red.
But Gabrielle's charms were more than "skin deep." She had the promise of being a noble woman—self-forgetful and loving. With all the brightness and light-heartedness of a French woman, she possessed a good portion of Scotch solidity and firmness, and above all a real trust in and love to God and her Saviour Jesus Christ. She also (though in a different way), like Priscilla Warner, felt she had a work, and a great one, given her to do on earth, and like Priscilla, she was ambitious to do it.
The M'Ivors, at the time we write of, had been for five years settled in the town of Birmingham, where Mr. M'Ivor was a teacher of drawing. But although he had a good number of pupils, yet his wife's long illness, and the needs of a family of seven children, of whom Gabrielle was the oldest except one, made it hard work to keep the wolf from the door.