A Social Meteor — page 249: what you’re looking at

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

A SOCIAL METECR. 239 away. “They’re all alike, and will cheat if they get the chance, as quick as look at you. ‘The idea! the meat bill for this past three weeks is as big as it was last month, and scarcely a soul of company in the house while Miss Georgie was away visitin’, I wonder if he takes me for a natural born fool? IT1l lay him out to-morrow when he comes, as sure as my name is Kate Douglass.” Then she put the chairs in their places and gave the fire a final raking; but her troubles were not yet over. Susan, the chambermaid, had gone out again without permission, and Mrs. Douglass was determined to wait up for her. “Tm just in proper trim to give her a good talking to,” she continued, grumblingly. ‘As if I didn’t have enough to ’tend to, without having to setup until morning for her, the good-for- nothing little minx. ‘This makes the third time she has done so, too, and it’s always her mother who’s sick. Mother, indeed; it’s probably some follower, she meets. I never ought to have en- gaged her in the first place, with her meek eyes and red cheeks. ‘Those innocent ones always turn out the most unreliable, and I might have known it. Well, ’m getting paid for my sus- ceptibility to good looks, and I deserve it.”’ She glanced around in search of some employ- — ment with which to while away the time, but GEomicbhoo cS Gon