Witch Hazel; or, The Secret of the Locket — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

ee Se Ne ae ee ce ee ee Re ek inserted in all the-papers. No onecame to claim her, and Mrs. Graham and her friends finally came to the conclusion that her parents and other members of | her family must have fallen victims to the terrible conflagration, thus leaving the poor child homeless and friendless. “What are we to do with her?’ asked Mrs. Gerard one day when they were talking over their straitened circumstances. “Tam going to keep her,’’ replied her daughter, quietly. “Enielie! surely you cannot mean it! How will we eyer manage to live ourselves, let alone undertake the support of 9 growiny child?” “We will manage some way,’ Mrs. Graham an- swered, the lines about her beautiful mouth setting themselves resolutely. “I am growing very fond of her; it almost seems sometimes as if Lhad my own darling back again.’ “Don't, Emelie !”’ sobbed her mother. ‘She is not at all like our sweet Florence.” “No, she is very willful and full of faults; but she is a bright, attractive little girl, and with proper management will become a great comfort to us. She was thrown into my care in a way that seems proyi- dential, and [ dare not shirk the responsibility. I could not send her to any charitable institution; there is no other place for her, so Iam going to take care of her myself.” “Mamma, would you be willing to go to New York to live?” she asked, after a thoughtful silence. ‘Why New York instead of here, where you are familiar with both place and people?” asked Mrs. Gerard. “Because I believe that I can find business better there than here, where it will take so long to rebuild the city.” “Business!” exclaimed the elder woman, aghast. “Yea, busizess, mamma dear. The stern fact that I have my living to earn stares me in the face, and I believe that I can go into some business that will support us very comfortably. We have compara- tively nothing—a few hundred doiars only, which will soon melt away unless put to some practical use. Mamma, I have determined to go to New York city and set up fashionable dressmaking.” “But, Emelie, you never made a drescomisteakslesag