His Other Wife: A Novel — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

46 MISSIONARY WORK. ance in the little frontier town of one of the new Western States, to which we will give the name of Bethel. - To the simple-minded citizens of Bethel he presented himself as a missionary preacher of the Evangelical per- suasion, which, we know, leaves much scope for a clever and imaginative mind's operations upon a credulous com- munity. | The inhabitants of Bethel were composed of emigrants from the densely crowded cities of the North-east. Trades- men, artisans, farmers, and mechanics dwelt together, a band of brothers in their city of refuge, on the banks of one of those lovely and romantic rivers that wind patiently through the great mountain passes, and along the rich mineral soil, to the peaceful ocean beyond the golden shores of California. The zealous missionary was received by these good folks as the patriarchs of old welcomed itinerant angels passing their way. It chanced that Mr. Croft found lodgement in the household of an old couple who were childless, but who had charge of a young relative who was their ward and adopted daughter. ) This young lady possessed no other attraction than a snug little fortune, of which she was to have unrestricted possession on her eighteenth birthday. Rachel Logan was a girl of strong passions, and only mediocre intelligence, but her sensibilities were painfully acute, and her personal homeliness was a source of ex- quisite torture to her. Eomicbooks.¢o m