Beadle's Dime Novels No. 3: Myra, the Child of Adoption — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

23 POOR, POOR ZULIMA ! CHAPTER II. Trifles, light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.—OTHELLO. Ir was spring-time in the South—that rich, bright season more luxurious in foliage and profuse in fragrance than our warm and mellow summers ever are. The orange-trees were all in flower; carnations blushed warm and glowing upon the garden banks; the grass was mottled with tiny blossoms, gor- geous and sweet as the air they breathed. All around the house which Zulima occupied was hedged in with honey- suckles and prairie-roses, that sheltered the grounds and leap- ed up here and there among the magnolia-trees, lacing them together in festoons and arcades of fantastic beauty. Poor, poor Zulima! With this beautiful paradise to wander in, with the sweet air, the warm sky, and all that world of flowers, how unhappy she was! Alone—utterly alone !—her child slept in the bosom of another; her husband had been months away in the far North; an unacknowledged wife, a bereaved parent, how could she choose but weep? Weeks had gone by and no letter reached her; at first her husband had written every day; and with his letters, eloquent of love, lying against her heart, she could not be wholly miserable ; thinking of him she sometimes forgot to mourn for her child. At first she had been greatly distressed by the impediments which the flight of De Grainges had multiplied against the ac- knowledgment of her marriage, but this event had in no de- gree shaken the holy trust which that young heart placed in the object of its love. Singularly unambitious in her desires, but impetuous in feeling, she only felt the continued secrecy maintained regarding her marriage, because it separated her from the babe she had learned to love so intensely. True, it served as a restraint upon her husband, and frequently de- - Comic @olksS.GOunnie A