The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

THE EVIL GENIUS. pane 0 gies The strange surname struck her; it was ‘‘ Benny- ed ; a4 Not a common name, and not a name which seemed to be altogether unknown to her. Had she heard her father mention it at home in the time of her early childhood? There were no ussociations with it that she could now call to mind. She read the letter. It addressed her father familiarly as ‘‘ My jear Roderick,” and proceeded in these words: “¢The delay in the sailing of your ship offers me an opportunity of writing to you again. My last letter told you of my father’s death. J was then quite unprepared for an event which has happened since that aifliction befell me. Prepare yourself to be surprised. Our old moated house at Sandyseal, in which we have or so many happy holidays when we were schoolfellows, is sold. ~ ** You will be almost as sorry as I was to hear this; and you will be quite as surprised as I was, when I tell you that Sandvseal Place has become a Priory of English nuns, of the order of St. Benedict. ‘*T think I see you look up from my letter with your big black eyes staring straight before you, and say and swear that this must be one of my mystifications. Unfortunately (for lam fond of the old house in which I was born) it is only too true. The instructions in my father’s will, under which Sandyseal has been sold, are peremptory. They are the result of a promise made, many years since, to his wife. ‘* You and I were both very young when my poor mother died; but I think you must remember that she, like the rest of her family, was a Roman Catholic, ‘‘ Having reminded you of this, I may next tell you that Sandyseal Place was my mother’s property. It formed part of her marriage-portion, and it was settled on my father if she died before him, and if she left no female child to survive her.. lam her only child. My father was therefore dealing with his own planing when he ordered the house to be sold. His will eft the purchase-money tome. I would rather have kept the house. ‘* But why did my mother make him promise to sell the place at his death? ‘*A letter attached to my father’s will answers this ques- tion, and tells a very sad story. In deference to my mother’s a it was kept strictly a secret from me while my father iived. ‘‘There was a younger sister of my mother’s who was the beauty of the family, loved and admired by everybody who was acquainted with her. It is needless to make this long letter longer by dwelling on the girl’s miserable story. You have heard it of other girls, over and over again. She loved and trusted; she was deceived and deserted. Alone and friendless in a foreign country, her fair fame blemished, her hope in the future utterly destroyed, she attempted to drown herself. This happened in France. The best of good women—a Sister of Charity—happened to be near enough to the river to rescue her. ECOMMICLOO S (E() mn