Beautiful but poor

Fancy a dingy old brick house on B---- street, New York city--dusty outside and moldy in all its ragged, papered walls inside--a dreary house with small, poorly ventilated rooms...

The cracked bell, which had done service all those long years in the establishment of Miss Scrimp, had rung its discordant call for supper. The hour was late, for many of her bo...

The bindery in which Hattie Butler, with over one hundred other persons, male and female, worked, was famous for doing very fine private work, outside of that done for many publ...

There was a regular flutter in the boarding-house of Miss Scrimp when the bindery girls got in that Friday evening; for they brought the news that Hattie Butler had been promote...

Mr. W----, one of the proprietors of the bindery where our heroine worked--a junior partner, but the chief manager of the concern, was a single man, not yet forty, in the very p...

Mr. Legare, after leaving the bindery, drove, or was taken in his carriage, to a prominent bank, in which he was heavily interested, both as a stockholder and depositor, transac...

Mr. W---- was rather surprised to receive quite an early call at his bindery from the son of his wealthy patron--the younger Legare. He had met Frank at his club, and on “the ro...

Mr. W---- echoed the sigh which left his visitor’s lips when the latter departed. And the wealthy binder looked toward the screens which hid fair Hattie Butler from general view...

“I hope I have, sister mine. If you had hands as small and white, and fingers that tapered down to the rosy nails as do hers, you would throw off your half-dozen diamond rings a...

Little Jessie Albemarle always had the door-bell to answer, even if she was making beds in the top story of the house, when she heard it, for Miss Scrimp considered it beneath h...

Miss Scrimp was unusually cross that night at the supper table. There was less than the usual quantity of thin-sliced bread and butter on the table. The butter, ever scanty, was...

“I couldn’t find the letter nowhere, Miss Hattie. I must have been mistaken,” whined Miss Scrimp. “And I’ve dragged my poor old bones all the way up these dreadful stairs again...

Mr. Legare sat in his magnificent library, talking with Frank and Lizzie, his only children. Where the large room was not lined with book-cases filled from ceiling to floor with...

“Ochone! The ould boy has got into the mistress, to be sure, and all to wanst. Here’s real round steak, and I’m ordered to broil it nice for the breakfast, instead of frying it...

Mr. W---- was not much surprised, after what Frank Legare had said, when he received a visit from the father of that young gentleman, nor astonished when in the office Mr. Legar...

Hattie Butler left the bindery at her usual hour, and pausing only long enough to buy an evening paper, as she always did on her way, after her increase of salary made her feel...

“I’ll go to the door, dear--you keep on waitin’ on the table. I’m expecting the house agent,” said Miss Scrimp to Little Jessie, who started when she heard the bell ring.

Mr. W---- went directly home after his interview with Hattie Butler, and in the presence of his sisters, Flotie and Anna, he opened the portfolio, and together they examined the...

The next morning Mr. W---- sent one of his house-servants to the residence of Mr. Legare with the portfolio of drawings, but without any message, for he knew the old gentleman w...

The library of Mr. Legare was a favorite resort for his sister-in-law, Mrs. Louisa Emory--or Aunt Louisa, as Frank and Lizzie delighted to call her. In his books, and also in th...

“Miss Hattie,” said Mr. W----, just as the people were leaving work, and she was rising from her table, “please put this letter in your pocket, read it after you have had your s...

A scream of terror broke from Lizzie’s lips when she saw her aunt fall back fainting, but she did not know the cause. Neither did Frank or Mr. Legare. Not even had Mr. W----, wh...

They know the day must not dawn on their closed eyes, but they must be up, wash, eat, and off to labor before the sun from its eastern up-lift gilds the city spires.

Not in all California--not even in the grandly glorious valley among the cliffs and gorges of the famed Yosemite, can be found a wilder scene than that exhibited where the Feath...

“Sister Lizzie, I want to talk to you. It is not your regular bed time by an hour or more yet. Can you be real steady, and thoughtful, and loving, for just a little while?”

When Hattie Butler went down to her breakfast next morning she studied the features of little Jessie Albemarle as closely as she could while the girl was flitting to and fro, ca...

“Our dear Aunt Louisa is ever so much better to-day, and her first wish this morning was to see her. But the doctor thought she had better wait until afternoon, until she grew s...

“Oh, thank you, Miss Butler. I am so glad you have come,” said Mrs. Emory, in a low, tremulous voice. “I have something to ask you, and then perhaps a long, strange story to tel...

Little Jessie, ever neat as far as she could be in her person, now looked really pretty, for her new eight-cent calico dress, though bought at a slop-shop, fitted her slight and...

Mr. W----, when he came to the bindery next morning, knew all about the wonderful discovery, the romance in real life, in which Hattie Butler had borne such a prominent part. Fo...

Hattie was bending over an old edition of Don Quixote, in Spanish, which had been brought up for binding--almost worn out, the cover gone, and the leaves misplaced, when two han...

Hattie was engaged that night, until a late hour, over her writing-desk. A letter which she had already written, enveloped, sealed, and stamped ready for mailing, was opened, a...

“Great Heaven! what is the matter, Miss Hattie?” he cried, as he saw her face turn whiter and whiter, and her tall, graceful form totter and reel as if stricken by a fearful blow.

The very minute Mr. W---- entered his father’s, where he lived with his parents and sisters, his tallest and prettiest sister, Flotie, came running to him with the paper in her...

“Battling with the storm.” That was the very word. For while those loving friends sent up a prayer to Heaven for her safety, Hattie Butler, unable to remain in her state-room, n...

That was what the chief pilot said to Captain Smith when he returned to the pilot-house after he had seen Hattie Butler to her state-room, and taken a turn to the engine-room an...

Mr. W---- was up and out bright and early that Sunday morning, anxious to see the Sunday papers, daily and weekly, most of which he knew did not go to press till late in the nig...

When Edward W---- got home that night he found two angry girls up to meet him. His sisters, Flotie and Anna, their dark eyes flashing, each with an “extra” in her hand, met him...

“Yes, sir. Here it is, prepaid, O. K., all hunky, and so forth,” cried the lad, and as Mr. W---- took the dispatch, away he went, on the run, to deliver more.

Hattie--or, as we should call her in her own home, Georgiana Lonsdale--with her force of character, knew that it was wrong to give way to unavailing grief, and with a strong eff...

“Yes’m, and I’m glad of it. I missed you so much. The girls have all been wild over what the papers said about you savin’ so many lives on the steamer. Was it all so?”

Mr. W---- stayed but three days in San Francisco. Advertising for a foreman and hands, he was soon overrun with applicants, and had plenty to choose from--good, sober, reliable...

It was well for her chance of quiet that Hattie Butler took her place in the office, where none could invade without permission, when she returned to the bindery, for every one...

In front of the finest mansion on Beacon Hill, though the chill of autumn was in the air and a northeast wind came cold from over the bay, an arch of hot-house flowers was erect...