Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

Ps Ge. e t a BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 73 The rough serge gown was wrapped about a form once fairy- like with grace and health; but the coarse garment had dragged it into a stooping figure with a hollow chest; the brown hair was shorn, yet shone in flat rings like amber cir- clets round the pallid brow; the long, slender neck was bend- ing meekly and bearing its yoke without demur; the little feet flitted wearily over the cold flagstones. Nearer it came —this apparition. She lifted her eyes slowly—they filled with wonder and joy—then she glided out of the ranks and fell upon the ground outside the bars. | And this woman in the blue serge gown, whose compan- ion waited for her with pointed finger and ghastly mirth— this woman, with the faded face and hollow, stooping form —great Heaven! she was my sister/ CHAPTER X. TAKING UP THE DETECTIVE BUSINESS. ‘Help, master—help! here’s a fish hangs in the net, like A poor man’s right in the law; ‘twill hardly come out!’ The man in livery, with a matron by his side, was hurry- ing toward us. I stretched my arms through the iron bars and seized my sister’s hand. Come what would, I would hold her now. ‘* Why—what business have you here, madam?” cried the woman, angrily. ‘‘ See, now, what you’ve done to this pa- tient, and the rest will be as bad. Come—get up, and move along; no tricks, now!” She put her firm hand on my sister’s shoulder, and for- cibly dragged her out of my reach; not before I had felt a sudden. pressure upon my palm from my sister’s fingers.” “Oh, be prudent,” she breathed, almost inaudibly, with her eyes on the ground. | I gazed eagerly after her, as she feebly rose, assisted by the matron, and was allowed to sit on a wooden bench run- ning along the high wall. I prayed God in my heart to grant me patience and wisdom to know what to do. ‘‘Strangers are never allowed here,” said the matron, opening the door with a key at her girdle, and dashing down an iron shutter over the bars, ‘‘And, Hobson, I can tell — Comichbooks:.e