At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

24 | AT A GIRI’S MERCY. men to give almost their all to aid on the cause of freedom and victory. ‘Don’t you worry, you dear papa. You can easily pay it back, you know, if thatis necessary, though I can’t for the life of me see how he could ask it. And as to that, if you need the money yourself, now there are my jewels—more, really, than I know what to do with—and I will gladly——’’ His stern face, broken into quivering that was in- stantly stilled, stopped further words, and she only stood smoothing his hair with her tender fingers, wishing from the bottom of her heart that she were a man to take this burden from her father’s shoul- ders. ‘“‘Nan,’’ he said, lifting a trembling hand, and taking one of hers within it, patting it as he had done when she was a child, and came to him for comfort—it had been her habit to go to her father for comfort. ‘‘My brave little Nan! I haven’t come to that yet, please God, but it is like your thought- fulness to wish to help where help might be needed. It is only the awkwardness of its coming just now, when our army needs all the help we can give. That of Mr. Blake, with what I have lost of my own, will cripple my business considerably. The total loss is somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-five thou- sand dollars, and that isn’t a light loss at this time. It is the cramping of help where I wish to help that worries me. Our soldiers are suffering now for nec- essaries that this money—ay, half of this money— would give if only for a day, and at this crisis a day may mean victory. To take the food from the mouths of our soldiers—cowardly thieves as they are. If I had them here I would shoot them down as I would so many rabid curs. The city is swarming Gomicbooks.com