A Social Meteor — page 195: what you’re looking at

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

A SOCIAL METEOR. , 185 came to go through her house as they would go through an art gallery; that her china and bric- a-brac were worth their weight in gold! And now it was all over, and she must soon sink into utter oblivion and insignificance—forgotten after a short nine days. Scarcely realizing what she did, she returned to her dressing-room and pulled out all her jewels. She held them up to the light, fondling and kissing them as if they had been living creatures, able to respond to her caresses. Woman-like, what crushed her most was the thought of parting with her ornaments. She sat on the floor with them in her lap, bewail- ing her fate, and weeping, for an hour. Must she give them up, too? Was there no way of saving them? ‘They represented thousands of dollars, and when she was decked in them she felt like an empress. She might run away and take them with her, but then, what would one in _ her circumstances do with diamonds? She might better sell them and buy bread. And at this reflection she laughed a little, bitterly. How was she going to support herself? She knew she was incapable of teaching any but the very youngest, and she had no patience with children. She might manage to get some insig- Gomichboo ‘S (E(0)