Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

24 A CHANGE OF RESIDENCE AND AX ADVENTUBE CHAPTER IV. A OHANGH OF RESIDENCE AND AN ADVENTURE. Thas the stranger’s child found a home, with loving hearts and willing hands to care for her. But August and Alice Damon Huntress had for certain reasons withheld their surname from the mother of the ehild they had adopted. “T shall never put myself in the power of this woman,” he had said to his wife, while discussing the question. “Tf we adopt this little one we must s0 arrange matters that she can never be taken from us; so that she can never even be found by those who give her to us, or be told that she is not our own flesh and blood.” So he had called himself August Damon, which was the truth, as faras it went, but no one in Boston knew him by any other name than Huntress, and he did not intend thag the mother of the little one should ever know what be- came of the child after it was given into his hands. They gave her the name of Gladys, for, as Alice Hunt- ress said, she began to brighten and gladden their sad- dened hearts and lives from the moment of her coming to them. The Huntresses lived in a very quiet way, on an unpre- tentious street in the city of Boston. Mr. Huntress had a good salary, but they were people of simple tastes, and had more of a desire to lay by a snug sum for declining years than to live extravagantly and make a show in the world. For several yeurs nothing occurred either to entice or drive them out of the beaten track; then, all at once, Au- gust Huntress conceived a brilliant idea. put it in prac- tical use, secured a patent, and became a rich man. No other children came to share the love and care be- stowed upon Gindys, and the hearts of her adopted par- ents were literally bound up in her. Every possible advantage was lavished upon her, and at the age of twelve vears she wasa bright, beautiful lit- tle maiden with glossy brown hair, lovely dark blue eyes, and regular features, and gave promise of rare beauty when she should reach maturity a few years hence. comuicbaoolk