At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

AT A GIRLI’S MERCY. 29 her flowers. She could never care for them again, and yet how could she see them every day, and know what they had been to her, without caring? But, after all, why should she blame the flowers for his crime? Were they not still the blue bells Swinging in the same old garden? Still sweet, and dainty, and fair? She laughed at her own absurdity, and stooping tenderly over the flowers, cut the long- est sprig, and placed it among the carnations, red . and white, in her hand. “They are Frank’s flowers as well as mine, and the color of his eyes, too, and why shouldn’t I love them ?’’ She was standing in the shadow of the vines, hold- ing the flowers at a little distance from her, the bet- ter to note the effects of cream white and warm red and blue, when a step crunching the gravel of the walk beside her startled her from her pretty atti- tude. : “Charming, Miss Nan, very charming, indeed,”’ said Mr. Blake, pausing beside her with an air of familiarity that made the girl flush and dart one of her level glances up at him, full of a fire, that would have warned any other man to keep his distance from the sharp tongue that was ready to defend her rights. “‘Very charming and suitable for you. The red and the white and blue are your colors with your brothers in the war. But what a terrible mis- fortune this is that has befallen you.”’ ‘‘Not so terrible as it might be,’’ she said, icily, ‘*And, after all, there is more than one sort of mis- fortune, Mr. Blake. Do you know, I was almost happy a moment ago.”’ “‘And you are not now,’’ he said, an unpleasant expression on his face, an unpleasant laugh crossing “S m GOmiIEcboo (E(0)