A Parisian Romance — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

A PARISIAN ROMANCE, 33 the needle. For the first time in his life Henri de Targy was irrevocably, hopelessly in love, and he knew it. He knew that all his hopes of happiness were dependent on her lips, but, with the modesty which was a conspicuous characteristic of his nature, he was filled with racking fears as to the result. ‘To any looker on possessed of the slightest shrewdness, however, there would have been no doubt as to Marcelle’s feelings. Brought up in the utmost seclusion by her aunt, who was her only near relative, and but recently emancipated from the convent where she had received her education, this was the first time in which she had ever been thrown into intimacy with a young man, and Henri, with all the advantages which foreign travel had given him, appeared to her a very admirable Crichton. His poems, which were the outcome of a rather pretty talent with here and there a more or less original thought, were as beautiful to her as the most exquisite creations of Victor Hugo or Alfred de Musset. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it is not strange, then, that her heart should, Psyche-like, have burst its chrysalis and unfolded its wings. It is not to be supposed that Aunt Reine, who with all her good humor, was a person of considerable hard common sense, had been blind to the increas- ine intimacy between the young people and its probable results. She had instituted careful in- quiries as to De Targy’s character and his prospects (EOP ANIC OO KS (Eo)