Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

THE DELMAR SISTEBS. 9 ‘‘IT suppose you are dreadfully cross with me, both of you,’’ she cried, flinging her whip one way and her gloves another, ‘‘but I couldn’t help being late, I really couldn’t. I never had sucha glorious ride in all my life. I went about fifteen miles. See here now, Nora, what did you save for my lunch? Something bang up, I hope, for I’m simply starving. Confound it! I’ve pulled the band all off my hat! Just my beastly luck, I declare! Mend it, won’t you, Rosie? That’s a love, I’m no earthly good with the needle.”’ ‘Certainly, dear, only try not to use quite such strong language. You shocked Father Moore last Sunday, I’m sure, when you told him you would ‘poney up’ for the fair at Christmas time. Remember how provincial most of our friends are here. They don’t understand you.”’ Florence was about to make a hasty retort, but thinking better of it, simply laughed and followed Nora noisily into the dining-room. No one, on seeing the two girls together, would ever take them to be sisters, so dissimilar were they in appearance. Rose, who was about twenty-four, was tall, dark-haired, and stately, with a splendidly developed figure and eyes of so deep a black that at times they looked almost blue. Her chief beauty lay in the pure outline of her face and the quiet grace with which she carried herself. Florence was just the opposite. Blonde and fair, with bright color and light eyes which looked at you with the expectant, wide-open expression of a babe’s, she charmed by reason of her very youth. Her features were by no means as perfect as her sister’s and her figure was childish even for her eighteen years, but her friends and admirers seldom thought of that; she was agile and as full of life as a kitten. She was never in the same mood two hours on a Eomichbooks (C©)