The Gilded Age


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everything else--upon impulse and without reflection. As the days went  
by it seemed plain that he was growing in favor with Louise,--not  
sweepingly so, but yet perceptibly, he fancied. His attentions to her  
troubled her father and mother a little, and they warned Louise, without  
stating particulars or making allusions to any special person, that a  
girl was sure to make a mistake who allowed herself to marry anybody but  
a man who could support her well.  
Some instinct taught Washington that his present lack of money would be  
an obstruction, though possibly not a bar, to his hopes, and straightway  
his poverty became a torture to him which cast all his former sufferings  
under that held into the shade. He longed for riches now as he had ever  
longed for them before.  
He had been once or twice to dine with Col. Sellers, and had been  
discouraged to note that the Colonel's bill of fare was falling off both  
in quantity and quality--a sign, he feared, that the lacking ingredient  
in the eye-water still remained undiscovered--though Sellers always  
explained that these changes in the family diet had been ordered by the  
doctor, or suggested by some new scientific work the Colonel had stumbled  
upon. But it always turned out that the lacking ingredient was still  
lacking--though it always appeared, at the same time, that the Colonel  
was right on its heels.  
Every time the Colonel came into the real estate office Washington's  
heart bounded and his eyes lighted with hope, but it always turned out  
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Page
93 94 95 96 97

Quick Jump
1 170 341 511 681