A Struggle for a Ring — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

“KEEP MY NAME AND RANK A SECRET.” 6, ‘“‘I do not think,” she said, quietly, ‘‘that my father ever tasted claret in his life.” ‘*Never in his life!” cried the astonished nobleman. ‘“Why, Ailie, what a strange family yours is!” ‘“Very,” was the quiet reply; ‘‘and there are many thousand others quite as strange,” ‘*‘Then, a claret jug would not be of the least use to him, Ailie,” said her husband, in a tone of keen disap- pointment. ‘“No, not the least,” replied Ailie. He wondered why she smiled—why that quiet expres- sion of amusement deepened on her face. ‘Tell me,” he asked, ‘‘ what does your father drink? [I might choose something, after all, to please him.” ‘*As a rule, he drinks hot rum and water,” said Ailie. ‘*My poor father! it is not often, you know, that he can afford it.” | ‘*T had better buy him a good liquor-stand,” said Lord Carsdale. ‘Tf you will,” said Ailie. It seemed useless repeating that he would seldom be able to keep any spirits in it. She saw plainly that, though his lordship had a tolerable notion of picturesque poverty —such poverty, for example, as he saw in the country, where pretty cottages stood in gardens of flowers—yet of the dull, prosaic, terrible poverty that oppresses the lower middle class, he had not the faintest conception ; it was all an unknown world to him. His dainty, fastidious notions were shocked at the bare idea of hot rum and water—what would the reality be? She was gifted with wisdom, this young wife, and she begged that her husband would abandon the idea he had of going home with her. When she thought of the ill- (ele) Ss (E(0) mm G JOO