Angelina: Or, The Mystery of St. Mark's Abbey — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

330Ct*S | ANGELINA; OR, As the graceful stranger uttered these words, be pressed his lips respectfully upon Angelina’s hand, and hurried away. Angelina reached the cottage door, and then a secret and irresistible impulse urged her to look back. The moon was shining brightly, and she was therefore ‘enabled to see the form of the young man distinctly. He was standing in the path, with his arma folded, and his mantle wrapped closely arousd him, and apparently watching her with the most intense earnestness. When be beheld her look towards him, he waved hishand. Angelina, with a blush, hastily entered the cottage, where her father was anxiously awaiting her arrival, having been surprised at her long absence from the cottage, and the lateness of the hour. He immediately observed the unusual paleness of her countenance, and the extreme agitation of ber manner, and he seriously questioned ber as to what had happened to excite her alarm in such a powerful manner. - Angelina could not dissimulate, therefore, much as she dreaded the reprimand she would receive from her uncle, for not having attended to his injunctions, she related to him the whole truth. Mr. Woodfield seemed greatly astonished by the account she gave him, and paced the room for a short time with considerable agitation, muttering to him- .self—*‘ This, this, the more confirms my suspicions; the villain! but I will see him and demand an explanation ; let him not imagine that—— ; but Angelina, you have acted very wrong, very imprudently in visiting the ruins of St. Mark, after the strict injunctions I gave you to the contrary; I told yeu that danger lurked there, and you have now found that my words were correct. 1 tell you it is not the baron, (whose conduct‘is perfectly inexplicable), you have to fear alone, but there are others who may be even more dangerous. I know that there are smugglers in the neighbourhood, and I have good cause to suspect that they make the abbey ruins their haunt, and the place where they conceal their contraband goods. 1 must, therefore, once more request, nay, insist that you do not visit it, for should any of these lawless men find you larking about, they would probably think you were a spy upon their actions, and your life would be sure to be sacrificed for their security.” Angelina could not but see the reasonableness of these ideas, although she was not of the same opinion as Mr. Woodfield, namely, that, although there might be smugglers in the neighbourhood, they had made the ruins of Saipt Mark’s Abbey their retreat. She, however, promised him faithfully that she would adhere to his wishes, and he expressed his satisfaction, and also his de- termination to demand an explanation of the outrageous conduct of the Baron de Morton on the following morning. With regard to the awful discovery which his niece had made in the chamber, Mr. Woodfield, after having deliberated for some time upon it, gave it as his : opinion that the skeleton had, in all probability, been placed in the spot where she had discovered it, purposely by the smugglers, in order to keep up the report of the abbey being haunted, and to frighten any person away, who might be bold enough to intrude apon their retreat, In this opinion, however, our heroine did not coincide, and it was moreover very strongly opposed by Mrs. Woodfield and Laura, who maintained that it was undoubted proof that there had been some horrible crime perpetrated in the abbey, and that it was, there- fore, certain that it must be haunted by the dread phantoms of = who had been murdered. U COMIC OOOlKS.€O