A Struggle for a Ring — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

aa YOUNG WOMEN NOT ADMITTED. II required stern discipline to keep them in hand. He had been very successful. Some of his scholars—the men whom he had coached—made a great mark in the world. Some young men sent to him as refractory, disobedient, idle, useless, induced to be too fast to live, had been sent back to their parents wiser, steadier, and in every sense of the word reformed; so that the doctor had quite a reputa- tion. Few were able to afford the luxury of sending their | sons to such a place; those who could do so appreciated the blessing. _ The doctor belonged to a good family, and he was proud of it. - ees : ‘‘It is no use expecting your boys to be formed in é; gentlemen unless you send them to a gentleman,” he was wont to say; ‘‘a third-rate man has only third-rate. man- ners. ” | But the doctor had one weak place in his armor, one © » skeleton in his closet. He was a rigid martinet in the way of morals; no young man ever found time for flirtation in his houses; it seemed to have been built with the €XPTeSs purpose of keeping all women at a distance; no pretty maid-servants were ever to be found lurking about the fe halls and staircases; no pretty girls waited at table or- attended to the wants of the young gentlemen. The doc- tor was far too wise; he had a discreet, motherly house- keeper, two grim, elderly maid-servants, a butler, and a footman. No woman under the ‘age of forty was ever allowed to enter his doors. - & o Of all establishments in the world it the last from which any one would imagine a clandestine #harriage—the very last. People had such faith in the docter; they told each other that their boys could not go toa Saler, 5 PCE > a | *s | the doctor was so very particular. Then for this to happen! The doctor had one shadow 4 Eomicbooks.com