Beadle's Dime Novels No. 20: Florida; or, The Iron Will — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

2 10 FLORIDA; OR, THE IRON WILL. because her father—everybody, perhaps, liked me the best— no, 1 should uot say that—petted me and showed me the most attentiit. 1 remé@mber she said to me once, ‘ Virginia, who- ever I love you must come between us; it is my fate.’ She is such @ strange creature—a fatalist—and oh! so supesti- tious. I sometimes think one of those old; grand, but dark and unhappy spirits we read of has taken possession of her— she is so mysterious, so unhappy !” The student was thinking, and, like Virginia’s, his check had taken on a deeper crimson. “ Heery one she loves,” he muttered to himself. “Can it be, then ?” “ Well—I think, to be candid,” said Varginia, after a pause as if she was answering a question, “ Madge Spicer likes you mightily, and she is yexed because you don’t pay her all the attention. She is handsome, you know, and, as you say, spoiled. Poor child! she has no mother !” “Handsome! I don’t know. Her eyes are too bold, like her manners. Her glances strike you—are hurled at you. O Virginia! when I write my book—that dear book that shall make us both famous—what women I shall paint! You shall stand for the portrait of my best and highest type. But they will not all be angels, most assuredly; I have your sister and Madge Spicer, and some others I could tell of, who are models, in their way.” “Do you know it is getting very dark ?” cried Virginia, starting up. “Do you know there is going to be a beautiful moon?” queried Parker, as he wound an arm about her waist, and, spite of her blushing, forced her gently to sit down again. “Yes, but we shall not see that for an hour,” she replied. “ Well—you are not afraid of the dark, or of me either, are you?” he asked. “ Do stay; it is so sweet to have you ber Tinggi like fingers of- marble patting over my cheeks ; onder what makes them so hot? I wish z EComichooks.com