Stella Rosevelt — page 224: what you’re looking at

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

218 FRUITLESS EFFORTS. strained every nerve and spent hundreds for him,” Josephine said, angrily. At this moment a servant entered the room and handed her a note, She opened it eagerly and read it. Her face flushed a deep crimson, and, with a passionate ges- ture, she instantly tore it in two. ‘‘ What is it?” questioned her mother. ‘Tt is too dreadful!” the spoilt beauty cried, stamping her foot; ‘‘and I believe that girl will be the death of me yet.”- ‘‘'Tell me what it is,” persisted Mrs. Richards, growing pale. ‘“‘Tt is a note from Lord Carrol himself,” Josephine answered, her cheeks still hot from mortification and anger. ‘‘ When we were at Long Branch, he noticed this cameo ring that I wear— I happened to put it on the last night that we were there, un- fortunately—and said that it was very much like one which belonged to a friend of his. He appeared rather strangely when he said it, and told me that his friend’s name was Archi- bald Sherbrooke. Of ccurse I can understand now why he would not say that it had belonged to him. I told him that it was given to me by a relative, and he did not appear like him- self after that.” ‘‘But how came you by it—who gave it to you?” interrupted her.mother, who had never noticed the ring until now, for Josephine had so many trinkets that she could not keep track of them all. The girl flushed again, guiltily. “To tell the truth, it belonged to Stella,” she confessed, reluctantly, ‘‘and it was such an exquisite little thing that lI took a notion to have it. I offered to buy it of her, but she wouldn't hear a word of it, saying she ‘ prized it too highly as the gift of a friend.. But I was bound to have it, and went to her room one day and took it, and had it made into a ring, for it was in the shape of a pin. Of course I intended to return GComicbooks,¢Eo (