Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i2 ALFRED DE ROSANN. which evidently was remitted to London and destined for you. When I found that your lamented father did not return, as he promised, and as he repeatedly ex- pressed his intention of shortly doing in his letters, I advertised in the daily journals to-request that any banker, agent, or merchant, who might have received money to the account of a M. d’Estelle, would take the trouble of enclosing his address, that I might com- municate with him on an important matter relative to the said M. d’Estelle. But no answer was returned to these solicitations; and every other step that I took to discover your father’s fate, and that of his immense property, was equally ineffectual. I sent a trusty agent to Paris to make inquiries relative to those inte- resting circumstances; but unfortunately your father was accustomed to act with so much reserve, even towards his best friend—who was myself—that this measure produced no more effectual results than the various others which I adopted. It was my fond hope,’’ concluded the old man with tears in his eyes, “to have been able to leave you and Henry, at my decease, a comfortable addition to your present means; but, alas! unhappy speculations have robbed me of the wealth accumulated by the sweat of my brow. Thank God! you do not want—you are not in poverty, if you be not rich; and you will act kindly to your brother William, should his affairs still continue unprosperous. Farewell, my dear children—may Heaven bless you —farewell! And with these words the tender father and excel- Jent friend breathed his last, leaving behind him hearts that felt too deeply not to deplore his irrepa- rable loss. — EoOmicGbooksrGco