Roxy Hastings — page 208: what you’re looking at

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

ROXY HASTINGS. | 199 “She has cooled down since and apologized, and we are quite good friends again. The casus belli has been sent on ‘his travels,’ but he left a note for me in which, among many other foolish things, he says he shall try to render himself worthy of me, and that he will consent to live on in the faint hope of yet winning my heart and hand. I gave the note to his mother. | ‘‘March 15th. Ihave just received your second letter, which has shocked me very much. I am sorry that you hesitated so long to send me this information. They be- lheve me dead—they have raised a monument to me—and this must have been done four or five months ago. “ Pray, let my mother be undeceived. Hasten to her (she does not know you), or write her an anonymous note, or in some way let her know that Iam alive and well. Do not be abrupt with her, but you will know how to manage it. I trust everything to your judgment. Poormamma! Poor mamma !” CHAPTER XXXVIIL. “AMIABLE WEAKNESS.” Charley Lee had a fondness for springing agreeable sur- prises upon his friends, and it was this “amiable weakness” perhaps which chiefly influenced him in concealing his great wealth. He brought sudden joy to many hearts by his munificent and well-timed benefactions, which were be- stowed sometimes covertly, sometimes openly, but always with a most delicate regard to the sensibility of the re- cipients. : Without abandoning his plan for a grand house and beautiful grounds near the Central Park, he resolved not to await the distant completion of this scheme, before changing his residence and taking an upward step in the social scale. Very soon after Miss Hastings had returned to Phila- delphia he had purchsaed a new four-story “stone-front” in a fashionable street, not far from their old home, which he proceeded to furnish in that costly and elegant style which only modern art has rendered possible even to great wealth. : Not until it was ready for occupation, in December, did he permit his family to know what he had done, and he had abundant reason to be satisfied with their delight EOomIicbooks (E(0)