Roxy Hastings — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

ROXY HASTINGS. 121 advanced until the following year, though Mark Holden had long contemplated such a result, having this very golden prize in view when he had told Alfred that he had other views for his daughter. But Mr. Burr’s visits, even when they became frequent, awakened no suspicions in the young lady’s breast, for she considered them designed for her parents. True, she often found herself left alone with him, but this she considered mere accident, and as she was natu- rally obliging, and was polite by education, she did her best to entertain her father’s friend. Her best was not much, for, suppress it as she would, her grief for her lost lover was still the paramount emo- tion of her heart. It would not “down” at the bidding of duty. She followed her friend in imagination on the bat- tle-field ; she pictured him sick, wounded, dying; she fan- cied him calling upon her name, or clasping her photo- graphed image to his heart (for this he had begged to re- tain, and she had not refused him), and she feared that she had dismissed him too coldly. | “If I must sacrifice both my happiness and his,” she said, “why could I not have told him distinctly that I loved him still, and always should, and that, if forced to wed another, it should be with that open and unequivocal reser- vation. This would at least have consoled him, but now perhaps he regards me as faithless, changeable, and even mercenary.” But distrustful of her own judgment, timid, accustomed to strict obedience, used to suffer, Miss Holden buried her sorrows in the depths of her heart, and tried to carry a smiling face before the world. When Mr. Burr began to grow gracious toward her, tak- ing evident pains to please her on all occasions, a singular idea took possession of her mind. Here was a benevolent old gentleman, she thought, who had heard of her trials, who pitied her, and seemed to take a real fatherly interest in her. He was veryrich. He had neither wife nor child. Perhaps he meant to redress her wrongs, to make Alfred rich, and bid them be happy. She had read somewhere of eccentric old bachelors doing such deeds as this, and surely there was never a nobler, handsomer, truer, braver youth on whom to bestow such favors than Alfred Lee. Burr knew him, had met him once or twice at her * father’s house, and she was sure he must have admired him exceedingly. Perhaps he meant to adopt him and Comicbhoo ye - * * < ae . 2 * -_ want * mer : , <S (ee)