Beadle's Dime Novels No. 20: Florida; or, The Iron Will — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

OUTWITTING A DRAGON. 29 Her hand clasped his arm more tightly at sound of this Wailing cry. How this man did love her! “ Parker, what shall I do? counsel me. She take my mother—I never could let her go without me, even if I was independent of Florida, which, alas! I am not. I wisk I could—I wish ”—her very powerlessness left her without heart to conjecture or even to wish. “Pll tell you, Virginia. There is no other way to check this woman’s wild, imperious ambition—we must be married, Virginia.” an “Parker!” With crimsoned cheeks that rivaled his own, she recoiled from him for a brief moment—then drew near again, and hid her face on his own. “Yes, Virginia. I have never spoken of it, but we might as well be frank now as we have ever been.| I love you—only heayen knows how well!/ You are as my life, my very soul, to me. Without hope and faith in you,I should die ina week, I know I should, so strangely am I constituted. Do not fear but what I can take care of you, dearest—and you shall not leave your mother. I have an offer still open to take charge of the second department in a large public school in the city. I have hesitated because I preferred a smaller salary and the sight of your dear face. Come, Virginia, let us outwit this dragon—the wicked, wicked woman who wants to sell my life—ruin me.” “T must think of it, Parker,” said Virginia, tremblingly yet not unwillingly. * “We shall always be together then, darling, we can defy Plorida. All day I shall toil like a hero for my blessed little Wife, and, when I come home, Virginia, “en—then for the book! How I shall write, you beside me—your clear eyes to look into as in wells, from which I shall draw up such lovely images. Then, some time the book will be finished, a pab- lisher found—it will come out, shining in gold, my name and yours, too, inside—for, to you shall I dedicate it—and, oh! how Sweet | think, dearest, think—it will be ‘to my wife! 0, Virginia! I need to feed on nothing but thought to-day.” had reached a spot where two roads branched off. The roses shone through dew-drops, and the grass seemed like fine sprays of emerald. An old man sat sunning himself at Comicbooksk¢om