Ruby's Reward — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

‘It is a delightful place to me, any way,” Ruby answered, brightly. ‘(T suppose I find it so because everybody is so kind to me; but I know that there is a great deal of sadness and hardship in it, and the knowledge often troubles me. I wonder why it need to beso. It must be very hard to be poor—to be it and in want. Ihave always had plenty of money ; I have always been well, and my brother has guarded me trom every trouble.” ‘“Are your parents living?’ Walter asked. | ‘No. My father died before my birth, and I lost my mother when I was very young ; so Robert has been everything to me all my life, I could imagine no greater sorrow coming to me than that of losing my noble brother,” she concluded, with a sigh, and a wistful expression clouding her young face, as if the shadow of some coming evil had suddenly fallen upon ker. “Yours has indeed been a very bright and beautiful life thus far, and I wish that it may be so until the end,” Walter said earnesily. | Thank you,” Ruby replied, a smile chasing the graver expression from her face ; “but perhaps that might not be just the best thing forme. Now, what good fortune can I wish for you?” The young man’s face kindled at this question. He longed to tell her that the best fortune that could possibly come to him would be to win the love of her own pure, true heart; to have the assurance that some day she would become his wife, to walk with him through life, and help to ennoble it with the constant interchange of such grand and holy sentiments as he had enjoyed to- dav. comichooks.com ile: