Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 67 I ascended four flights of narrow wooden stairs and knocked at a door on the right hand. A young woman of very girlish aspect opened the door, whose sad face broke into a smile of joy when her eyes lit upon my badge. «<< Come in—come in, miss,”’ she said, eagerly; ‘‘ I’m sure I’m so glad to see you. He'll be at rest now.” She placed a chair for me, and bent over a high bed in a corner, where a young man lay with his eyes closed. «‘ Charlie! Charlie!’ ‘I’m not, sleeping, Luce, my girl,” said a quiet voice. ‘Cheer up, then; here’s a Soldiers’ Friend come to see you.” The man raised himself slowly and looked at me. He had a thin, cadayerous face, which would have been delicately bleached if he were a gentleman, but was brown with win- ter’s winds and exposure, for he was only a dying soldier. What strength he had—and it was very little now—seemed to flood into his eyes at sight of me; they were hollow and dim with sickness, but the added hope and joy made the face a brave and pleasant one, despite the coming conqueror. «How kind of you! I was afraid I would have to go without seeing any of you; did No. 10 send you to me, miss, just in the nick of time as I was praying for ye?” ‘‘ No. 10 has had to go away to the country, but she sent one in her place; and as of course she knew you wouldn't care as much fora stranger as for her whom you learned to trust, she gave me a recommendation, which I will give you just as it came from her mouth. ‘Tell Charlie Harrison that I send you in preference to twenty-seven ladies whom I might ask, because you know how to feel compassion.’ There! will that do for a character?” ‘« Plenty—plenty for me,” he responded, softly. His eyes looked wistfully at me as if to draw me nearer; he lifted his head to look at the other empty chair beside him, and [now — saw that the poor fellow was utterly helpless, having lost both his arms. It wasa log, with a soul in it. I obeyed his unspoken wish, and seated myself close by his pillow, while tears of sympathy obscured for a moment his face. «Now, ain’t it kind in Heaven to send such deliverers to a poor chap like me, whose days of working are gone for- ever,” he looked at himself apologetically, ‘and who can only live and eat, and spend money? I often think now Gomi (9) books (e(0)