Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

66 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI” and bore us in the murky shadows onward, and months crept away into the past. . I leave these dim shades of Cimmerian darkness where the breath of the dead chills me—I come to the second act of the ‘‘Secret Vendetta,” which was sped by unseen hands. CHAPTER IX. ‘© GOMFORT OTHERS, AND GOD COMFORTS ME,” ‘‘ My life has crept so long on a broken wing Thro’ cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing!" TENNYSON. Four months passed away; my first remembered experi- ence of frost and snow; also, my probation of great sorrow. On the fifth of April, I, by the providence of Heaven, went to visit a district in Jersey City, which had been left in my charge by Miss Belle Cranstown, then absent for some weeks in the country. I may here explain that a so- ciety of young ladies had been formed for the purpose of visiting the families of the soldiers who had been disabled in the war, and supplying their wants as far as means would permit. Miss Cranstown having been called away by the sickness of an aunt or cousin—I cannot remember which—lI sup- plied her place, and as my own district required my pres- ence only two days in the week, I went over on Wednesday by the Jersey City ferry, and found my way up Montgom- ery street to an obscure lane, where, close beside a large red brick building, with grated windows—as my memorandum, book informed me—lI found the address of my first patient. _ It wasa tall, wooden tenement-house, with brawling fami- lies on every floor, and gradually deepening poverty the higher one climbed heavenward; but I was not afraid to pass the groups of rough-looking men, who were grimly en- joying the consternation of their employer at their strike for higher wages, and the gnawing of their own stomachs, as they leaned against the greasy walls, with their hairy azms bare and their feet unshod. They learned to look for the ‘Soldiers’ Friends” with tat- tered hats raised, and rough hands outstretched to clear the filthy way for the unaccustomed foot. comicbooks.com