Ruby's Reward — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

look up and tell me that you will give me the right to protect you from every ill.” But Ruby’s head was bent until the dainty curls on her forehead almost touched the homely work in her basket. Her cheeks were painfully flushed, and hey Loa y rose and fell with the startled beatings of | eart, She had tried to steer clear of this avowal, but the very question that she had asked for that purpose had brought it upon her. Her hand still lay imprisoned in that of her would- be lover, and when she tried to release it he would not let it go. ‘Do not repulse me,’ he wenton. ‘‘Have you not seeu during all the last year how I-have loved you? I have tried to tell you of it many times, but somehow you have always evaded ne. But the time has. come when I must know my fate; I can bear the suspense no longer, Tell me, dearest, that I may claim you; I shall be proud to own you as my wife before all those who have turned the cold shoulder upon you, since your brother’s trouble; preud to set you above them, and make them ashamed of their fickleness and false pride.” He forgot, perhaps, just then how he, too, had been guilty of fickleness and false pride; how when he had tirst heard of her loss he had said to himself: “That ends all that bright dream; I can never marry a poor girl; the woman I wed must bring with her a golden guerdon as well as personal charms to help grace my home.” , But Ruby Gordon had taken a deeper hold upon his heart than he had imagined it possible for any one to do, and though he absented himself for a while, he found that. lite was very dull and tame without her bright presence; that she was more to him without apenny than any other woman could be with a for- tune equal to his own. Then, too, as we have al- ready mentioned, his antagonism was aroused by the fear that Walter would now try to win ]¢@micbhooks.com