Vashti's Fate — page 269: what you’re looking at

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

me ~ ioe E54) ‘> i v — ~~, 264 BANKRUPT, BODY AND. SOUL. CHAPTER XXXI. BANKRUPT, BODY AND SOUL. Frank wrote once ina while. He had realized some- thing very comfortable from the sale of the ‘‘house in town ” and its appurtenances, and was traveling in Europe. Health not very good, he wrote, but he thought it was im- proving. ‘There was now and then an absurd attempt to jest about his malady, which, some of the physicians had told him, might end in consumption. Of course, he said that idea was too incredible for belief. From time to time, through the winter and spring, he wrote fluctuating accounts of himself—he had taken cold, or been imprudent about diet, or the particular climate he was in wasn't fit for a gentleman to live in, and at last he had concluded to try home air—they might send Philip to the city to meet him if they could, and they might send a bed, too, if they could as well as not—it made him very tired to travel sometimes ; all of which had the effect at Everleigh of forewarning them what was coming; and when Philip got out the old carriage to go to the city, Nora would go too. They had to wait a week or two, for the vessel in which Frank was to come had not reached port. It came at last, and the gaunt, shadowy-looking person- age that strong men bore tenderly to the waiting carriage was Frank—Frank reduced to weakness, emaciation, and hectic flushes, but peevish, restless, and impatient. Should they take him to the hotel fora rest? No; take him home—home to Everleigh—and home to. Everleigh they hastened. ‘That was a dreary ride home. Poor Frank, with his distress for breath, which he tried to ac-