A Struggle for a Ring — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

136 AT SCHOOL. he loved—how another had gone through perils of all kinds, through persecution and fatigue, embarrassments of all descriptions, in order to show his love for the one -he had chosen. Indeed, a boarding-school for young ladies may in many instances be considered quite a hot- bed of love, Alice heard so much there of love and lovers that her ideas were much enlarged on the point. She saw more plainly that Lord Carsdale had pitied her, had liked her, but had never loved her. If all these stories were true, and love worked such wonders in men’s minds, then indeed had no love been given her. Madame Roubart’s pupils liked her very much indeed ; they all thought her-the daughter of some country squire, and Alice had sense enough and caught up the spirit of the place sufficiently to understand that the less she said of her home and her surroundings the better. More than once she heard the name of Waldrove of Roseneath and Lord Carsdale. One of the young ladies—Jennie Tring— had an elder sister, a blonde beauty, who admired the heir of Roseneath very much; indeed Miss Tring had resolved that, if possible, she intended to be Countess of Waldrove. Jennie talked quite frankly of the chance that her sister had of success, while Alice sat quite still, wondering what - they would say if they knew that in the years to come she would be Countess of Waldrove—what they would have said if they had known that the fair-haired, sweet-faced girl, who was only judged from her quiet exterior, was in reality Lady Carsdale?, : Time passed Sp Alice made the best of it. She worked hard; she was so quick and so keen of percep- tion that in a short time she had acquired all the outward semblance of a perfect lady. In one year from the time es, comicboo cS: €O ~ as cs " - od ~~ cd “£