Beautiful but Poor — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR. | 35 folly, as you rightly term it, has originated in any brain but your own. I was present at the only inter- view your father has ever had with this young woman, and only the books, and how to bind them, was the subject of conversation. It was brief and business-like, nothing more.”’ ‘‘Can I see the young woman?”’ “We are not in the habit of exhibiting our em- ployees, Mr. Legare,”’ said W——, with considerable hauteur. ‘‘But if you choose to walk about the bind- ‘ery with me, you can see every person in it, while examining my work, machinery, and so forth; but I will not permit any remarks made that can hurt the feelings of an employee.’’ ‘I would be the last to do it, sir; and you need not point out this prodigy—if she is so very beauti- ful, and so superior in her grace and manners, J am sure I shall be able to discover her without aid.”’ “Very well, Mr. Legare. We will pass through the various departments, as visitors frequently do.’’ The young man assented, and with Mr. W—— moved through the large hall, looking at folders, _sewers, gilders, and pasters, all busy at their various tasks, and examined with rather a careless eye all the newly-patented machinery for cutting and press- ing, though Mr. W—— strove to point out the great improvements of the age as well as he could. They had passed through a greater part of the bindery, and young Legare had looked with a sur- prised eye on many a pretty form and interesting face, for he, like too many of the upper or non- laboring class, had imbued the idea that beauty and labor, grace and toil, intellect and worth, could not ~go hand in hand, or indeed have any connection. They now came to where.a young girl, with her Be EOMICHDOO <S €o