Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 57 never refused his sympathy to Arthur, and listened with fresh interest to each new tale which the younger man chose to pour into his ear. And it must be acknowledged that inthe course of their acquaintance he had been called upon more than once. An orphan from earliest childhood, Mr. Forrest, with an elder sister, had been left to the care of an indulgent grand- mother who had lived just long enough to see the girl mar- ried and the boy enter college. Comparatively alone in the world from that time forth, he became thoroughly self-re- liant and independent. The share of his parents’ comforta- ble fortune, which became his at twenty-one, had been sreatly augmented by old Mrs. Forrest’s demise, and had he so chosen, he might have given himself over to a life of ease and idleness for the remainder of his days. But he was not so constituted. His father had been a physician; he became a broker, and before he was thirty had trebled his inheritance. | More than one mamma with marriageable daughters had beamed encouragingly upon the prosperous young bachelor, and several bewitching widows had been known to lavish their sweetest smiles upon him, but fruitlessly. That he liked and admired several charming women of his acquaintance was an open secret, but that he preferred to keep them all at a proper distance was no less so. Hence he was a constant despair to the fair sex, and a source of amusement to his own. Unlike his friend, a pretty face sel- dom failed to make its impression on Arthur's senses, even if it did stop short of his heart. The valet placed a decanter, a pitcher of water, and two glasses upon the table, and then drew the curtains and left the room. CONMIE NO KS (©) im