Page:Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. I, 1890.djvu/78

niece, several members of the household were assembled in readiness for the second dinner-bell. There was Fran Wohlgemuth, a middle-aged lady with severe brows, utilizing spare moments over a German work on Greek sculpture. Certain plates in the book had before now caught the eye of Mrs. Bradshaw, and she in consequence regarded this innocent student as a person of most doubtful character, who, if in ignorance admitted to a respectable boarding-house, should certainly have been got rid of as soon as the nature of her reading had been discovered. Fran Wohlgemuth had once or twice been astonished at the severe look fixed upon her by the buxom English lady, but happily would never receive an explanation of this silent animus. Then there was Frattlein Kriel, who had unwillingly incurred even more of Mrs. Bradshaw's displeasure, in that she. an unmarried person, had actually looked over the volume together with its possessor, not so much as blushing when she found