At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

AT A GIRL’S MERCY. CHAPTER I. A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE, The moon had long dipped below the horizon, and the world was hushed in the silence that comes only with the dawn, or with death. When the east should glimmer with the new-born morning, the birds would awake, and all nature would arouse; but at present not a thing was stirring, not an insect nor a bird. Under the elms that surrounded the hall where Squire Courtland lived the darkness was more dense and deep, if that were possible, and only a faint trace of paler shadow marked the edge of the lawn where the thick hedge shut off the street. A deadly stillness, not a glimmer of light in the house, nota glimmer of light in the east, where the dawn was being born; not even a dog in the kennels lifted his voice to warn the inmates of the house of the danger that lurked unseen, unknown in the still- ness and deep shadow of the elms. | Silence—and was the silence of death to follow? A whisper, scarcely audible in the silence, a light, ‘firm step, making no sound on the close-cropped Gomichbooks:co