Beautiful but Poor — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

162 <— BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR. CHAPTER XXXIII. ‘MY MOTHER I8 DYING!’?’ “Great Heaven! what is the matter, Miss Hat- tie?’ he cried, as he saw her face turn whiter and whiter, and her tall, graceful form totter and reel as if stricken by a fearful blow. ‘“My mother is dying,’’ she panned, and I far away, with forgiveness not passed between us,’’ and she sank shivering into the ania from which she had arisen. And now, in a flash of thought, Mr. W——-.remem- bered where he had seen those initials before. They were on the clasp of the portfolio which held her drawings. _Undoubtedly they were the initials of her real name, and all this time she had been to him only Hattie Butler. ‘‘Miss Hattie, how can I assist you? If you desire it, I will escort you anywhere you wish to go, leav- ing when you desire, waiting for you, and keeping sacredly any secret you may share with me.’’ “Oh, Mr. W——, you are'so good. Do not believe me wicked, or reveal it, if I tell you that my real name is embraced in those initials—that no wrong doing of my own caused me to hide it under another, but that I sought to escape persistent annoyance on a subject | may not name now—sought to evade a demand which wealthy and worldly parents made of me.”’ ‘‘Miss Hattie, I would stake my life on your good- ness, that every action of your life has been pure, and marked by the noblest of purposes. Now, tell me what I must or can do for you.”’ cComicbooks.co “hie