Beadle's Dime Novels No. 20: Florida; or, The Iron Will — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

6 FLORIDA ; OR, THE IRON WILL saw 4 girl on the streets who drove all the women I had eve admired out of my head. You look incredulous, but upor my honor it’s a fact—nearly a year ago, too, and until I meet her again, women, even young and adorable girls, smiling with an indefinite giggle, or blneing from head to foot, are to me as if they were not.” - ‘And pray what did this paragon of paragons look lize ¥” asked his friend, as they both arose to leave the house. “I only saw her for a moment—her eyes were turned from me. By her stature and manner she could hardly be sixteen. Her whole face had a golden tinge and yet it was exquisitely fair. Her eyes—ah! what eyes my friend !—that same tinge of gold in their brown depths—her hair—that was golden too. I could compare the warmth and richness of her complexion to nothing but a Parian vase of exceeding thinness within _ which a lamp is burning. I don’t think she was rich—she _ might have been poor, for she had a bundle in her hands such as working girls earry. I should know that girl among a thousand. I should know her if disease had dimmed the glori- ‘ous eyes, or paled the cheek. I should know her in the vel- yets and jewels of a duchess—I should know her in rags and poverty.” “ Dudley—I never knew before that you were romantic ” said his friend. “That you were an enthusiast was perfectly clear to me—but this little confession of yours has placed your character in a new light. Ill be bound now you quarrel with your housekeepers so as to have the chance of advertising, hoping, in your dreamy soul, that this paragon of human vases with a light shining through, will stumble upon your dark- ness some of these days. Hayn’t I hit it now” - “No, Le Roy—you’re wide of the mark. I’m a particular man, and when I see any special unti the woman who undertakes to keep me afloat on the tide of housekeeping—Pm all out with her. I suppose I’m too fastidious—but then as J can haye the opportunity of seeing new faces about me, why, I improve it. You would not imagine there was such fun in the world as there is in answering the applications of those who consider themselves competent to cheer my unso- cial path through life. O! that I could find one of those Madonna-faced creatures who are never obtrusive--who take conichbooks.com