Dolly Loraine, by Susan Morley (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ... happiness or the interests of anyone she cared about. She felt that Humphrey was now more deeply in earnest than was at all desirable, seeing that (as she said to herself with a shadowy touch of regret) it could, of course, never come to anything. She liked him too well to have the least wish to gratify her vanity or to amuse herself at his expense; and this evening she was honestly doing her best to abstain from leading him on. Dolly was not the sort of girl to be unconscious of the true state of the case. She knew quite well, that Humphrey's admiration for her was rapidly turning into the sort of feeling which she might soon find it by no means easy to keep in check. Her powers of repressing unacceptable adorations were far from despicable and had been well tested, but in this case she would be fettered by the fact that Humphrey's affection would not in itself be unwelcome to her, and of this she was acutely conscious. Dolly was the only child of Lord Alresford's younger brother, Walter Loraine, and when his death left her at eight years old a penniless orphan, her grandmother took charge of her, and Ashworth had from that time been her home. There she grew up under conditions as unfavourable to her moral development as well could be. Lady Alresford was a hard, worldly old woman, living in stately poverty, the result of the reckless spendthrift ways of both her sons, and Dolly was trained from her childhood to understand that she would have to provide for herself by as early and as good a marriage as came within her reach. She had, however, proved intractable, and had held out bravely more than once against strong family pressure in favour of what were considered "desirable offers." She had even on one occasion refused a man whom she more than liked, and...