Stella Rosevelt — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

216 FRUITLESS EFFORTS. cried, nearly ready to weep as the door closed upon the man she loved, and she was left alone with her mother. : Mrs. Richards then related what she had overheard the pre- vious evening, and told her also of her subsequent interview with Star and Mr. Rosevelt, and the news that had come to them that morning of their flight. Josephine listened to her in dumb amazement, hardly able to comprehend the romantic story. ‘That girl has done nothing but set evervbody by the ears ever since she entered this house,” she burst forth, at length, quivering in every nerve with anger. ‘‘ Lord Carrol in love with her! cannot comprehend it, and I think it is scandalous for him to confess it, after the marked attention that he paid me at Long Branch.” ‘‘T think so, too,” Mrs. Richards echoed, but rather faintly, for she knew how Josephine had almost been thrown at him, so to speak. ‘‘Well, Iam glad she is gone,” the excited girl continued. ‘‘T hope now that we shall be able to take some comfort. She bewitched papa with her pretty face, her music, and pretended love of study. She was an artful thing, making herself so con- spicuous at school that even the newspapers took it up, and was so puffed up on account of it that her airs were insuffer- able. It is a mercy that Uncle Jacob lost his fortune before he came to us, or she would have been likely to wheedie him out of it.” © ‘‘She has been as sly as a fox,” commented Mrs. Richards, wrathfully, her ire against poor, unoffending Star waxing hotter and hotter, for she was as bitterly disappointed to lose his lordship as a son-in-law as Josephine was to lose him as a husband. ‘‘I never heard anything like it. To think of his being engaged to her, and we never suspecting such a thing! I'll bet,” the refined young lady continued, as a bright idea struck =} Gomilebooks. Go