Beautiful but Poor — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

12 BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR. the clatter of knives and forks, and cups and sau- cers soon drowned all this, and until the dishes were literally emptied, little other noise could be heard. Long before the rest were done sweet Hattie But- ler had finished her single slice of bread and butter, one cracker and a cup of tea, and gone to her room. Grim and silent, yet keenly overlooking the appe- tite of each boarder, sat Miss Scrimp, until all were through, and had gone to their rooms, or into the old dingy room, slanderously called a parlor, to chat awhile before retiring. Then Biddy Lanigan came in with two extra cups of strong tea, one for the mistress, the other for her- self—a plate of baked potatoes and a couple of nice chops. Poor Jessie Albemarle had her supper to make from the little—the very little the hungry boarders had left. Miss Scrimp was not long atthe table. She was burning with curiosity about the letter in her pocket, and so she took a small lamp in her hand and threaded her way up the steep, narrow, uncarpeted stairs to the attic where our heroine fodrad. Knocking at the door, it was opened by Hattie quickly, who, with her wealth of jet-black hair, glossy as ike: all let down over her shoulders: looked, if possible, tenfold more beautiful than she had below, with her hair neatly bound up so as not . to be in the way when she was at her work. , Hattie had been reading, for on her little stand, near the bed, was a lamp and an open book. There were not two chairs in the room, but Hattie proffered her only one to Miss Scrimp, and waited to learn the cause of this unexpected visit, for Miss _Serimp never called on a boarder without she was co comicbooks m