Stella Rosevelt — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

40 b MRS. RICHARDS. ‘No, indeed, it would not,” he returned, earnestly. ‘* May I have just a lock of its shining gold, please, Miss Star?” and his fingers touched the massive braid almost tenderly. ‘‘T have nothing with which to cut it off, and—I'm afraid it would be very foolish,” she said, with drooping eyes, but a quickly beating heart. For answer, he drew a tiny pair of scissors from one of the pockets of his vest, and held them out to her with a smile. She took them hesitatingly, her delicate face crimsoning even | to the light locks which lay upon her forehead; then, witha hand that was not quite steady, she clipped a silken tress from among the curling ends below the blue ribbon with which the braid was tied, and laid it, with the scissors, in his extended hand. ‘Thank you; I shall always keep it,” he said, with glowing eyes, as he put it carefully between the leaves of a small note- book which he took from another pocket. Then he took her hand in a warm,: strong clasp, and, with a reluctantly spoken farewell, a lingering, wistful look into her lovely blue eyes, he went away. As he disappeared through one door-way of the saloon, the figure of a woman, clad in plain dark robes, entered by the other, and threw a quick, searching glance around the place. ‘I’m in search of a girl named Stella Gladstone,” she said, in sharp, incisive tones, as her eyes fell upon our lone Star. The young girl took a step forward, her earnest glance fast- ened upon that plain yet not unkind face. ‘‘T am Stella Gladstone,” she said, simply. The woman looked at her keenly for a moment, and her homely countenance softened into something like pity as she noticed her delicate beauty. Then she said, bluntly: ‘Well, miss, if I was ever thankful to set eyes on anybody, Iam on you, or I’m much mistaken. I’ve lain awake o’ nights thinking of you, ever since we heard that the vessel in which bd | comiecbooks (E (0)