Stella Rosevelt — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

A FATAL MISTAKE. 147 tion would eventually draw us together again; and so it has proved. Star, I know that I love you as deeply and truly as it is possible for one human being to love another. You say you love England; you wish to go back and make your home there. ‘Tell me that, some day, 7 may take you there—that my home shall become: your home, and you will be my cherished wife. My darling, you have made yourself very fair to-day— so like the picture I have painted, and which I showed you yesterday, that something has whispered to me that a thought of me prompted it; that there was something of tenderness in your heart which made you put those shining locks, which you have been wearing in another fashion of late, into this massive braid again, and tie it with this lovely blue, so like ycur eyes. Raise them, dear, and let me look into them, to see if I can read anything of the story I wish to know. Tell me, Star, that when I come to America again, I may come to claim this hand and call its owner my wife.” His hand had rested lightly upon hers all the time he had been speaking. She had not attempted to withdraw it, and now his fingers closed over it in a firm, loving clasp. It still lay trembling but unresistingly there; and when, as he bent to look into those drooping eyes, she lifted them to his with one shy glance of answering tenderness, he knew that he had not sued in vain. ‘My own darling !” he whispered, passionately, his face flush- ing with happiness; ‘‘you do love me; I read it in your eyes, and the world was never so bright to me as at this moment; but tell me, shall I have what I want—will you give me your promise that, next year, when you have completed your edu- cation, instead of going back to England as a teacher, you will go with me as my wife?” She grew suddenly grave, and lifting an earnest look to his face, said : | ‘‘T have told you that Iam only a poor girl, with my own (E|00)(0) =) GO SS (EO)