Roxy Hastings — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

has ROXY HASTINGS. 55 is frank, true heart did not know how to interpret Signs like these. Something had occurred, he thought, to ruffle the temper of the father; but he suspected nothing of harm to himself until, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, the blow descended which was to crush his young heart, and was to render, he thought, his future life a long blank waste of existence. Did ever rejected lover think otherwise in the freshness of his grief, or fail to learn afterward that Love’s arrows are not poisoned, and that the wounds whieh they inflict, if not persistently nursed and svarified anew, will close without a scar beneath the healing wings of Time? Mark Holden was a magisterial man in appearance, _ portly and aldermanic, and his pride of purse he scarcely took means to conceal; but he had an idea of consistency which prevented him from suddenly forbidding visits which he had so long permitted—nay encouraged. But the gentle Lucy had her instructions, and when the expected offer came she could do nothing but refer her lover to her father, whose opinions she had been taught to regard as unquestionable—whose mandate was irreversible. “He will approve, Lu,” said the impetuous Alfred; “there is no doubt of that. It is your sentiments that I want to make sure of now. Surely, surely, I have not misconstrued all your kindness !” The signs of Miss Holden’s distress—her moist eyes, her pallor, her constraint—proclaimed sufficiently what she dared not give utterance to in words. But she drew back the hand which her lover offered to take, and said, faintly : “You cannot doubt my regard for you, Alfred, my es- teem—” * Regard !—esteem ! » What terms are these, Lucy ?” “Nay, substitute warmer words, if you will, Alfred,” added Lucy, coloring deeply, “but remember that I am not a free agent. I fear that our separation is decreed. But he will tell you all. Perhaps it is not as bad as I fear.” Catching at this hope the young man hastened to see the father, whom he found reading his evening paper, in his back parlor, and exhibiting his usual self-satisfied and complacent demeanor. He was fortunately alone, and Alfred made haste to im- prove his opportunity. , ‘IT have sought you, Mr. Holden,” he said, after a forma salutation, and in a manly way, ‘‘to speak on an affair of vital importance to my happiness. I love your daughter. Gomichoo gS) (e(@)