Stella Rosevelt — page 282: what you’re looking at

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

276 | DEFEATED. hand tenderly on Stars shoulder—‘‘ who did her utmost to make the old man forget as far as was possible his bitter dis- appointment, and who had already earned his love and gratitude by saving his life, almost at the sacrifice of her own, during that terrible voyage across the Atlantic. She has been likea sunbeam to me from the first; and when I saw how unkind you all were to her also—how you were betraying your trust and breaking your promise to her dying father—I resolved that she should become my especial care for the future. ‘‘] do not need to recall to your memory the last night that we spent in your house in Yonkers. It must be as fresh to you as it is to me. You taunted us both with our poverty and dependence. You drove er to desperation by your unjust accusations and your heartless language. She could not endure that kind of a life any longer, and she knew that I also was anything but happy; so she came to me, told me the secret of her success as an author, and of the income which her book bade fair to bring her, and begged of me to go with her to share her substance, asking in return only the comfort of con- genial companionship and the protection which my presence would give her. I was sorely tempted, as I have told her, to confess the part I had been playing, and proclaim her my heiress on the spot. But I thought, considering all things, it would be better to wait until she was through with school, while I wanted to study her a little more closely before com- mitting my all to her. She has stood the test most nobly. She has been the light of our home. She has labored early and late to minister to my comfort and happiness, and zow she is going to reap her reward. Everything that I cam do for her to make her life bright, I shadZ do while I live, and when I am gone, she will have the fortune which, under different circum- stances, would have been mostly yours.” . Mrs. Richards was pallid with anger, mortification, and bitter disappointment when Mr, Rosevelt concluded, Ba Aas i ~comicbooks.co