Stella Rosevelt — page 374: what you’re looking at

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

j — 368 A CRUSHING BLOW. the American Legation, and half of which he gave into Star's own hands. | ‘This is from Grace, this from Mr. Appleton, and—this must be from Nattie Browning, to whom I gave up my position as a teacher,” she said, running the letters through her white fingers. She laid the papers, which, of course, were of minor import- ance, upon the table, and, sitting down in a low chair, care- fully cut the ends of the envelopes, and was soon deep in the contents of her news from beyond the sea. It took her nearly an hour to read them all. Miss Meredith’s was full of chat? and innocent gossip, just like that charming young lady’s own self, and contained a num- ber of commissions and charges, not the least important of which was that Star must be sure to hunt up her brother Ralph, . who wrote that he should spend spend nearly the whole of the month of December in or near London. __ Mr. Appleton’s letter was mostly on business, and regarding the book she had written, as well as another which he wanted her to write. It contained also a check, and Star always felt very proud whenever these bits of paper came made out to her. They gave her a feeling of independence and pleasure which no other money did. ‘The third letter was an entertaining one fron a classmate—a poor girl to whom she had, as she said, resigned a position as teacher upon finding herself the heiress to a million. _ After reading these she took up her papers in a listless way ; she did not feel much in the mood for looking them over; they seemed tame and uninteresting after the letters. But all at once she noticed that one was not a home paper ; it bore the London postmark, and was addressed in a hand she did not recognize. | ‘‘It cannot be from Ralph Meredith,” she said to herself, Gomicbooks (E(@)