Beadle's Dime Novels No. 35: East and West — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

THE CITY COUSIN. 11 For a brief space no one made answer. Minnie’s father sat gazing silently into the fire, which lighted up pleasantly his kind and ruddy countenance, shining with a halfthoughtful, half-amused smile. Mrs. Willard senior, and Frank’s fair- haired wife, mused over their knitting. Minnie, with a great expression of interest in her childish face, crept in between her mother and Mrs. Gleason. ' “ Did you see what was in the Jetter ?” she asked, eagerly. “It wasn’t very clear, not near so plain as some ; but some of your folks is a comin’ out here, an’ that pretty soon.” Mrs. Willard sighed, and her husband’s face grew more thoughtful. on “Oh, I hope it’s my cousin Constance,” murmured Minnie, with suppressed enthusiasm. “TJ don’t see what makes you wish that ;’ and Mrs Willard sighed again. “ Because she’s so accomplished, and knows so much about the world.” “ That’s just the reason we wouldn’t want her to come here, I should say, Minnie. What could we do with an elegant city girl—put her in the loft to sleep ?” “Oh dear,” cried the anxious yet eager child, “ I wish we had the new house done !” ; “ But the new house is only on paper yet, and so we can not offer your cousin a room in that.” Two great tears rolled over the soft oval of Minnie’s cheeks, and she pulled the vail of “ bronze-brown hair” more closely about the eyes whose color was only a shade darker, and truly as gentle in expression as the wild fawn’s from which she had taken her pet name. “If she comes visiting poor folks she must take poor folks’ fare,” suggested Olive, Frank’s wife. “ An’ if she’s as sensible as you think she is accomplished, Minnie, she'll be content to share your‘ bed and board’,” remarked Mrs. Gleason, seeing the disconsolate looks of the young girl. “Her mother had all the pride of all the Willards in her veins,” sighed again Minnie’s mother. “She didn’t like us when we were better off, because we were too humble—I don’t know what her children will think now.” conmmicloooks. conn