Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

WOMEN ARE WITCHES. 99 tain to step in sooner or later and claim you for its own. If your wife has blue eyes, you wish they were brown; if dark, you find yourself with a decided preference for those of a celestial tint, and so on. The most ardent lover is cer- tain, finally, to look back upon his former infatuation as a feverish dream—if, indeed, he does not regard it as worse. If Arthur would but consider, he would be convinced that the abrupt ending of his affairs with Miss Clayton, charm- ing as she indisputably was, might prove a blessing, after all, and in future, if he should take yet a little more of his counsel, he would regard women as articles of luxury, too expensive for any sensible man’s purse. He said all this and rang the changes upon it so many times that at last it began to take effect. Arthur did not become cynical, nor did he eschew society, and it was far from Dick’s intention that he should. He went about see- ing and meeting women and even paying little attentions to such as appealed to his languid fancy. But, to his great satisfaction, Dick soon discovered that the fairest faces and the most bewitching manners, alike, failed to make more than a fleeting impression upon him; he seemed proof against all. If the truth were known, however, although he preached and warned at every opportunity, deep down in his heart Dick regretted the turn Arthur’s love affair had taken. He believed in him so thoroughly and admired him so honest- ly that it was incomprehensible to him how any girl, whom he chose to favor, could fail to respond. As for Gertrude Clayton, if ever he had read sincerity in any woman’s face, he was sure he had read itin hers. Shea coquette, with those soft, frank eyes? He could not bring himself to credit it, and yet he well knew that the most despicable charac- CORNIElOOOKS,Eo)