The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 206: what you’re looking at

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

The Little Girl, Now a Woman. 199 I had never thought of Tom having any such sad mem- ories in his breast. It was hard enough, God knows, to live his lonely life without any broken dreams to look back to. He did not tell me the name of the “little girl, now a woman,” and I did not ask him. But I sat in the darkness and thought of poor Tom meeting her, per- haps, daily upon the streets of the little village; of his thoughts and repressed longings, as he did so; of the two now separated, going their own different ways, the one, perhaps, not dreaming of the care the other had for her—maybe courted now by another—at least, enjoying all the pleasures of society; all of which poor Tom must see and be pained by, having for himself only the bitter- sweet memory of a long faded dream. I sat and watched by him in silence, and I knew that in my place by his side he was dreaming another one sat, who, if she only would come, but for a moment, would -do more for him than all else in the world. After a while he dropped asleep. IIT. Poor Tom was dying. I had been with him for a week, doing what I could to make him comfortable. We were alone the most of the time, for he wished it. One Sunday evening he was more restless than usual. ‘Paul, I want to see her before I die. Can’t you bring her to me?” CONNIE OOOLKS (CO)