Beautiful but Poor — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

132 BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR. Miss Hattie,’ said Mr. W——. ‘‘Your time could not be better spent than in comforting those who need comfort.’’ Hattie saw the hidden meaning of those words, and she would have comforted him had it been in her power. But she had made a decision in his case which she could not change. Mr. W—— now escorted his visitors and Hattie down stairs to the carriage which waited, and when the two girls sat side by side there, one resplendent in silk, laces, and diamonds—the other in her ever neat, well-fitting and well-made shop dress of ten- cent calico. without an ornament of any kind, he compared them in his mind, and his heart still told him the shop-girl, beautiful, but poor, was superior to all others in the world—his heart’s first and last choice above all others. | And he stood there and watched them and the car- riage till it turned the corner, and then he went back, with a weary sigh, to his business. As the carriage rattled on over the paved streets, so Lizzie’s tongue rattled, too, while Frank’s eyes only were busy studying out the marvelous beauty of the girl to whom his sister talked. ‘‘Do you know, dear Hattie,’”’ said she, ‘‘that I be- lieve we are to be cousins—real cousins. For if Aunt Louisa adopts you as her daughter you will be my cousin—my dear, dear cousin, will you not?’’ ‘‘I fear I shall never be more than a dear and true — friend to you, Miss Lizzie,’’ said Hattie, kindly, yet gravely. ‘‘Your aunt, perhaps, wishes to be as good to me as you indicate, but I can never yield to her kind desire.’’ | “But, Hattie, darling, you don’t know her yet. She is so good! Never did a kinder heart throb than Comicbooks €o