A Struggle for a Ring — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

de 60 “KEEP MY NAME AND RANK A SECRET.” ‘‘No; but I do not like to hear remarks about you— you must be like other people.” ‘¢T will try,” she said, meekly. And she did try. She studied his wishes with such an intense desire to please him, he could not be angry with her; on the contrary, his liking increased. ‘‘T am growing quite fond of you, Ailie,” he said to her one day. ‘‘I shall be distressed when we leave Paris. I think I must go home to see your friends at Rudeswell.” ‘¢You will not like it,” she said, frankly. ‘Why not?” he asked. ‘«Because you do not even understand such a home. You have never seen one like it. It is not very pleasant to us who know it. You will not like it.” But he fancied it would be a very grand and generous piece of patronage to visit this humble house; it would be doing his duty to its utmost extent. He fancied himself looked up to and revered by the whole of this family, whose patron he had resolved to be. He was hardly pleased that his wife should even say he would not like it. Surely ~ she had no reason to believe him proud. ‘*Ailie,” he said, one morning, ‘‘ you will like to take your mother and your sisters a very nice silk dress each; buy them to-day, and a few filigree ornaments. I saw something this morning that I thought would suit your father very nicely.” ‘‘Did you?” she asked, her beautiful face glowing with delight. ‘‘What was it? How good and kind you are -to me, Vivian !” ‘“‘“AmI? You deserve it all, Ailie. What I saw was a very beautiful claret jug.” She looked at him again with one of those, to him, incomprehensible laughs. cS (e(0) comichoo