Alice Wilde: The Raftsman's Daughter — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 ALICE WILDER. shall make no objections. Ben loves you, my dear, desper- ately. A girl should give two thoughts before she throws away such a love as his. ’Tain’t every man is capable of it.” “But Pm engaged to Philip Moore, father. We love each other.” Her blushing cheek was pressed against his that he might not see it. “Alice, my child,” said the raftsman very gently, in a voice full of pity and tenderness; “ Mr. Moore is a rascal. He may have told you that he loved you, but he don’t. He don’t in- tend to marry you. He’s a d— proud aristocrat !” waxing wrathy as he went on. “There! there! don’t you feel hurt; I know all about him. Knew ’t he made fun of us, after all we'd done for him, in his store down to Center City, when he didn’t know Ben was listenin’. Besides, he advised Ben to marry you, to keep you from breakin’ your heart about him ; said you expected him back in the spring, but he was goin’ on East to marry a girl there. So you see you must thipk no more of that rascally fellow, Alice. If he ever does come back here Pll whip him.” - ‘Ben told you this ?” cried Alice, her eyes flashing fire and her white lips quivering. “And you believed the infamous lie, father? No! no! Ben has murdered him, father—he has murdered my Philip, and has invented this lie to prevent our expecting him. O Philip !’—her excitement overpowered her and she fainted in her father’s arms. | Now that the tension of suspense had given way, and she deemed herself certain of the fate of her lover, she yielded for a time to the long-smothered agony within her, going from one fainting-fit to another all through that wretched night. The next day, when composed enough to talk, she told her father all—Ben’s offer of marriage, his threats, the circum- stantial evidence which fixed the guilt of the assault in the woods upon him, and her belief now that Philip had been made away with. The raftsman himself was startled ; and to quiet and encourage his child, he promised to set off, by to- morrow, upon the ice, and skate down to Center City, that her fears might be dispelled or confirmed. But that very night the weather, which had been growing warm for a week, melted into rain, and the ice became too rotten to trust. There was nothing: to do but to wait. cComicbooks.com