Her Faithful Knight — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

44 A Story of London. eling on Sunday is dreadful. The men smoke and play cards, and excite attention, and contempt, too, I think, at the railway stations by making themselves conspicuous and talking very loudly. And except when they are tell- ing coarse stories, the only things they all talk about are the lodgings they are going to have at the next town and the lodging they had at the last, and what the cooking was like, and how much they had to pay. Sometimes, too, they talk about the extraordinary hits they each and all of them have made in different parts, and how dread- fully the stage is going down. But in general it is lodg- ings, lodgings all the time. Because I had been acting only two years they all looked down upon me, as though that fact were something to be ashamed of, and called me every day ‘novice’ and ‘amateur.’ I am dwelling on all these things, Dolly, because I never would own to you before that the life was anything but delightful, and because, too, I almost wanted to put off the dreadful part of my story as long as possible.” She paused. A faint flush had come into her cheeks, but her lips were still colorless. Dorothy looked at her with ever growing apprehension. “If only you would try and eat something,” she whis- pered, coaxingly, “you would feel stronger to tell me everything. My poor child, you look half starved!” “T haven't cared to eat for several days now,” Phyllis returned, shaking her head wearily. “I have only just taken enough to keep me alive to come to you. I want you to put yourself right in my place, remembering that I am not clever like you, and that I cannot live without some one to love me.” “Don’t I love you, Phyllis?” _ “Tndeed, indeed, you do. But I wanted another kind of love, too. It was not that I wanted to be married yet, but I wanted a little kindness, a little admiration, a little . | COMNICOOKS (S@)