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. 1869. Excerpt: ... CAROLINA. CHAPTER I. THE HOTEL KITCHEN. " T NEVER will touch a drop, Issa, never;" JL and Carolina bent her flashing dark eyes upon the slate in her hand. It was not a whole slate with a nice frame, but only a corner piece broken in irregular lines, with edges left " flaky," as Carolina said. She was drawing pictures upon it as her fancy dictated, the inside of a room being most conspicuous, with chairs, tables, and other furniture, and as she spoke she rested her pencil in the midst of the ringlets of a little girl whom she had placed in one of the chairs. This child was not drawn from imagination, but was intended to be a likeness of the sweet little Issa, who-sat nodding with one elbow on the table, and a chubby hand thrust among the ringlets as a support to the pretty round head. Issa had slept thus for half an hour while her sister had been sketching, and would have slept half an hour longer if she had not been disturbed. As it was, she awoke with a start, for a heavy fall in the next room resounded through the kitchen and brought the child"s head to an erect position. She smiled a little, and said, in her fine, sweet voice,--" There goes the captain again. Didn"t you hear him? Carolina, why don"t you drink the sweet sugar out of the bottom of the tumblers? It"s real good." It was in replying to this question that the elder girl had paused in her drawing, and used the emphatic words with which we have opened this story. " I never will touch a drop, Issa, never;" and then as she spoke she bent her dark eyes upon the slate, adding emphatically, "Never, never! " Issa"s soft glance rested on her sister a moment, and then she continued, " But it is sweet and good, Lina." " I don"t care," said the girl, and she raised the pencil from her slate, " I never w...