A Struggle for a Ring — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

A PROUD FAMILY. 95° To love Lady Waldrove was also to love her dog Floss; the one could not be liked without the other. “My dear Linda, I am not quite satisfied over Floss— he has refused his chicken this morning. Last night I sent the most tender piece of lamb cutlet, but he turned away from it. Smithson says he eats too much, but Floss is too refined for that.” The girl bent down and stroked the dog’s silken ears. ‘*T think, mamma, that perhaps a little exercise would restore your pet. Shall I take him out in the grounds?” Lady Waldrove looked quite interested. ‘*VYou are very amiable, Linda,” she said. ‘‘I should be quite pleased; but that is not what I wanted you for, Smithson tells me your brother Vivian came home quite late last night, and I want to see him. Will you tell him so?” The girl’s face flushed with pleasure. ‘*T am so glad, a pe seems so long since Vivian was here, I will go at once.’ If Lord Carsdale had a preference for one sister, it was certainly for Lady Linda. He always said that if his mother’s training had left any nature in either of them, it was certainly in Linda. Lady Gertrude moved, spoke, thought, and smiled by rule. No matter what he or any one else said, they were both of them charming, elegant, high-bred, amiable girls—excessively worldly, but that was the result of their training. They did think of another world sometimes, for Lady Waldrove was always religious in the country—in town there was no time for it. Of course the one grand ultimatum was that the Ladies Carsdale should marry well; there seemed every prospect - of it. Lady Gertrude had ajtmacted the attention of Lord © Rawdon, than whom no more promising ae ever lived. 900 @ <=) co (e(o) mi