The Craze of Christina — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

The Craze of Christina. | 117 be aduchess, and yet whom he had discovered in so very humble a position of life; what was her > origin? who were her people and belongings? why had she suddenly dropped into his life? Then he pulled himself up sharply. Could it be possible that he was falling in love for the first time in his life? He had no right to fall in love at all—not for three whole years at least, which really at twenty-five seems almost a lifetime. ‘“Not to marry! not to marry!’’ he repeated dully to himself, over and over again, as he sat and watched Miss Pratt in the gloaming fire- light, and then another voice cried out sharply and shrilly at his heart: “‘But to love, to love! can any laws on earth stop a man from loving!”’ Then shyly, tremblingly, he put forth his hand and grasped the little white fingers that she had lifted between her eyes and the fire, and the hand that took them was shaken with awe at its own boldness. “Will you go to the fir grove to-morrow?— will you?”’ he murmured. Christina turned upon him, and utterly pul- verized him with that most beautiful and bril- liant smile of hers which seemed to require no spoken word. Then an upstair bell rang violently; Miss Pratt rose quickly, and a mo- ment later the visitor was gone, Comichooks.co