Laura Brayton — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

. 7 ep LAURA BRAYTON. 53 Laura appeared herself a moment afterward, and he told her to sit down. He would tell her what he wanted in a few minutes. Taking a seat near the table, and seeing that he was occupied in looking over documents, she care- lessly took up the morning paper and began to read it. 3 Her eye rested on the paragraph which had so excited him, the account of the fire, and in an in- stant her face flushed up, a smile lighted up her countenance, and involuntarily she exclaimed: © “How noble, how brave! It was just like him.” “Just like who? What do you see there that sets your eyes aglow and your cheeks aflame?’ ex- claimed Sharp, looking up, and seeing her excite ment. | “Why, sir, Mr. Eldridge Putnam saved a poor woman and her chlid, at the risk of his own life, from the fire last night.” “That was the cursed puppy that I drove from the house—the fellow that presumed to ask leave of me to pay attentions to you, eh?” ) “He was the gentleman whom you cruelly in- sulted because he desired to visit me!” replied Laura, indignantly. | “Gentleman, indeed! Gentlemen are in the habit of running to fires!) Gentlemen would be likely to get burned half to death in saving poor women and their brats from a burning house! But he knows better than to come here! I wish he had burned with the house! Over seventy thousand dollars gone in smoke and flame, and the insurance run 6ut! Vl be the death of Nathan Sloth for that! Put that paper down, Laura, and listen to me.” Laura laid the paper down quietly, but she did Ecomicbooks con