Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

10 THE DELMAR SISTERS. stretch, going from laughter to tears, from a fit of the pouts to one of overwhelming affection with astonishing rapidity. She was asomewhat designing little creature, though not particularly clever, for she never failed to lay siege to the heart of any stranger worth cultivating who came to town, male and female, and rarely met with de- feat. Men took to her much more quickly than they did to her intelligent elder sister, and with women she had a pretty, purring way that generally won them over at once. Rose never dreamed of being jealous of her conquests, for she adored her sister, and was never so proud and happy as when Florence was being made much of by the gay city butterflies who sought the refreshing country breezes and healthy pine lands of Wallford in summer. Vincent Delmar, their father, had died when Florence was but ten years old, leaving the entire responsibility of her bringing up to Rose, who was just then budding into womanhood. Their mother had been dead six years, and had left a heart-broken widower to mourn her loss. So when the time came for him to follow her, he heaved a sigh of relief, and placing the hand of the younger daugh- ter into that of the older, he said: ‘‘Rose, for years you have been a mother to this child, henceforth you must be father as well.’’ And she had faithfully fulfilled her trust, doing for the girl all that even a parent’s heart could dictate, and lavish- ing upon her the whole wealth of her affection besides. Mr. Delmar had been a prosperous Louisiana planter of good blood and excellent education, who had married a young girl of Spanish parentage, as dark as he was fair, and who had made him the best of wives. When the war broke out, like so many of the Southerners, he firmly be- CONNIE OOO KS, EC)