A Struggle for a Ring — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

A SISTER'S ADVICE. * Sr we shall always be good comrades and good friends,” he replied. She turned away in anguish too deep for words. The probability that he might love her never seemed to enter his mind, She saw it, and. knew her-fate. So it was arranged that-they. should remain for three days at the Rudeswell Arms hotel, then the young husband was to join his friends, leaving his wife with hers. He did his best during that time to win the good opinion of Alice’s friends; but, as he himself had expressed it, there was nothing in common between them. Hettie proclaimed open war against him. He was all very well, said Hettie; he might be as rich as he liked; but, for her part, she liked some one who seemed to understand the world was made for others as well as themselves; while F rank pub- licly avowed him a ’aughty swell. ‘‘He looks at me as if he knew I had to black my own shoes,” cried Frank. ‘*You need not blacken his character, if you do your ~ » PB] own shoes,” retorted Hettie, who could not refrain from contradiction, even when she cordially agreed with the speaker. | Rose, on the contrary, liked him. She, perhaps, more than the others, suspected some mystery in her sister’s marriage; she felt sure that Mr. Nelson was a man of noble birth. He was different to themselves as a Malay differs from a fair Saxon. «* And we are all well-born,” thought pretty Rose; ‘‘at least on my mother’s side.” Hettie was piqued and annoyed because her sister's hus- - band had gone to a hotel; because he constantly refused all their’ invitations to dinner and to tea. ‘‘We are not grand enough for him,” she would say ; EComicboo (S.cO