A Final Triumph; or, A Lady Bachelor — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

PENALTIES. | 91 bachelor simply because it expresses more fully a volun- tarily chosen condition in life in contradistinction to an en- forced one. Hight summers had passed since the occur- rence of the experience I have related, and Eloise, at the | time she arrived at the hotel where 1 met her, had dared live to be eight-and-twenty and still expected to be a part of the world and maintain a right to mingle in those little social festivities which make life pleasanter. But because she was eight-and-twenty, and still a maiden, her natural desire to live and enjoy subjected her to imputations so malicious, to treatment so spiteful, 1 have been led to designate her conduct as criminal, in order to make it accord with the penalties it invited. It may be instructive to my readers if I critically and with comments present her surroundings and her persecu- tors. And I will here say that in depicting these people I only present a type of the class one may expect to meet at any summer hotel. I speak especially of summer hotels, for at no other place of gathering of mixed people dves the artificial so positively rule; under no circumstances will one behold mere snobbishness and social ostracism, and, I may add, absolute spitefulness. In a former chapter I stated 1 was present that eventful evening when Eloise entered the parlor and fell under the observation of the eagle-faced woman. 1 saw this woman raise her lorgnette, and 1 will now repeat her words. She was speaking to one of her moon-faced daughters, but her words were intended for all who sat near her. ‘* Well, I declare, there is that Miss Studevant! How well preserved she is for a woman of thirty-three! 1 re- | a ala comicbooks 4 - yal AP sa : A . > dd. vee ~ oe “9 / Legie® Ae 0 Hae @ } : x : ff ony} bah et ‘ . : f ae se a. 7 , Cae) are AY a RY Ae EL Ag Oe ee er me BART ee er a gee ee ee SE Pe ba yd: we eee be ee PR, eae | WRENS SPP PEN se. ue fae Plies Ate c (EO)