An Adventuress (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. LYDIA AS PHILANTHROPIST. Lydia was not a very wise young woman, as wise young women go at the present day. She did not prudently take time to reflect; she was not careful to assure herself that she was equal to overcoming the difficulties that might beset the task she had undertaken; she was only anxious to begin it. She had not the slightest idea how she was to improve the condition of the miserable wretches at Star Sands; she was simply eager to do good amongst them. And so, instead of sitting down calmly and drawing out a rational scheme of action, she ran up to her room themoment she readied the hotel and rummaged her boxes for a certain blue morning gown made quite plain, and having found it, busied herself in taking off the scarlet bows with which it was trimmed. She had just enough sense to see that it would not do to go amongst those rude women in a costume that had provoked their derision. The next morning after breakfast she put on this blue dress, took off her rings, and started off alone on foot to Star Sands. Outside the village she thought it advisable to take off her gloves; but she had done better to have kept them on, for they betrayed her character less than her white hands, with their slender, rose-tipped fingers and long, transparent nails. She went in at the first open door shecame to. The room was dirty, untidy and miserable. A man was seated with his hands in his pockets and an empty pipe in his mouth, staring stolidly before him; a woman was looking amongst some rubbish in a cupboard. Three young children hanging to her skirts were whining in the manner of beggars asking charity. " I tell ye I ain't got anything for ye," she said, harshly. The children continued to whine, as if accustomed to this subterfuge. " I have co...