Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

THE DELMAR SISTERS. 11 lieved the ultimate defeat of the North was but a question of time and had no thought of disaster for himself, and it was not until the roof was burned almost over his head and his cattle were driven from his own pasture lands that he consented at last to fly from the plantation, whose every stick and stone were dear to him, Poor and friendless, with a bitter hatred toward the Northin his heart, he finally settled, after long months of wandering, in Wall- ford, with his delicate wife and two little girls, there to brood over the past and pine himself into an early grave. Florence had soon become reconciled to the loss of her father (her mother she no longer remembered), and grew up without a care or a thought for the morrow, but not so Rose. She never forgot that Florence’s future lay within her keeping, and that no matter how much devotion she might suow toward her, she could never entirely replace the mother-love which is so necessary to guide a young life aright. She humored and indulged the child almost to the point of spoiling her disposition, and Florence knew well that if coaxing failed to cajole her sister into acquies- cence in any trifling matter, an artful use of her pocket- handkerchief would seldom fail to bring her around. Presently the door was flung open again, and Florence danced in with a jam-tart in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. She stopped short as her eyes fell upon the work in her sister’s lap and exclaimed: “Oh, Rose, what a lovely bonnet! How clever you are!”’ “Do you like it, dear?” | “Like it? why, it’s a perfect beauty! Withall that pretty gold lace and those darling for-get-me-nots! Oh, it’s sure to be becoming. Blue is my color, you know.”’ ‘Any color is becoming to you, Florence,’’ returned the Eomichooks (©)