Beautiful but Poor — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

58 _ BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR. came up the stairs, and with a face of an ashen hue, entered the room. CHAPTER XII. WILL SHE KEEP HER PROMISES. ‘‘T couldn’t find the letter nowhere, Miss Hattie. I must have been mistaken,’”? whined Miss Scrimp. ‘And I’ve dragged my poor old bones all the way up these dreadful stairs again to tell you so.” “Tid you look on the shelf above your bed, where you laid it after opening and reading it?’’ asked Hattie, very quietly, but with her dark eyes fixed on the ashen face of the old vixen. ‘What?’ almost screamed Miss Scrimp. ‘‘Do you accuse me of opening one of your letters?’’ ‘“VYes—I do. There were two. witnesses to the act.’’ : ‘“Tt’s a lie! There wasn’t a single one beside me in the room,’’ yelled Miss Scrimp, wild and desper- ate. ‘‘No one could have seen me do it.”’ “Three witnesses, since you have turned State’s evidence, and confessed it!’’ said Hattie, so pro- vokingly quiet. ‘“‘T didn’t confess. I only said no one saw me do it.’”’ “Oh, yes, there did—and I will be able to prove it before the magistrate when I have you arrested. If you had confessed your fault at once I might have excused your criminal curiosity, and forgiven you in the hope that hereafter you would be a wiser and a better woman. But since you deny your guilt I may as well prove it and have you punished. In- side the walls of a prison you may have time to re- flect on the manner in which you have treated poor comicbooks €o