Witch Hazel; or, The Secret of the Locket — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

his equal in every respect. To-day she was only | Emelie Graham, the modiste—a servant to those among whom she had once shone conspicuous. Having sedulously kept this a secret from him, he doubtless believed he was asking a woman of wealth and hich position to share his home. 8he could not | eae he would have doue this if he had known the Rogen She could not bring herself to confess it at this late day, and she would not be dishonorable enough to accept him without doing so. So, although she knew that she was willfully put- ting away from her a life of love and happiness, and dooming herself to toil and loneliness, she resolutely, but kindly, declined his offer; yet begged to be allowed to regard him the same valued friend as of yore. When Adrien Earlescourt read this letter his hand- some face grew white and full of pain, “The whole epistle is entirely unlike her,” he said, as he read it through for the second time. ‘It is con- strained and unnatural, as if she was trying to hide something from me. She does not say that she does not—cannot love me. She avoids the question of affection entirely, and simply writes that she cannot be wy wife, without giving any reason for her re- fusal. There is some mystery aboutit. I believe I could win her if there was not.” He was not aman to lightly relinquish a purpose when once it was formed, and he determined to know the reason of Emelie Graham’s refusal of his suit. The very next steamer found him on his way to America. Reaching New York, his first act was to call fora directory and look up Mrs. Graham's address. The moment his eye fell upon it his face lighted, and to him the mystery of his rejection was ex- plained. “Madame Emelie Graham, Fashionable Modiste, No. 87 street,” he read. “Dear little woman,” he murmured, a tremulous smile curving his fine lips, ‘she lost everything in that terrible tire, and she came to New York to es- cape from her aristocratic friends, and to battle for her invalid mother and the child she adopted. Noble woman; my heart's deepest reverence, a8 well as my love is hers, and [ willstop at nothing in an honorable way to win her.” comichooks.com Pe ES ee eee, ey a, FF Oe PF eae