The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. 125 Between him and Richard an explanation had taken place, and the mind of the dying man was perfectly at ease respecting the future prospects of his sister Amy, whose happiness would have been complete could she have persuaded herself that her brother would have been spared to witness it; but his pale cheek and shortened breath gave the lie to hope, and bade her despair of ever seeing him restored again to health. The widow alone was without consolation; her heart was blighted ; her happiness, which time and long care had centred in her son, was about to receive a shock from which it never could recover. ‘¢ Half my holiday has expired,” observed Richard, with a sigh, as he reclined on his easy chair, surrounded by those objects which on earth were most dear to him —his mother, friend, and sister. ‘“‘ If I am not stronger, I at least am more tranquil, and the burning fever on my breast, which has so long dried up my blood, is cooled. I have not felt for months so free from pain as I have felt this night.” His mother’s heart sank at the words; she had watched too long by the side of her sick hus- band’s bed, not to know that the ease which gave hope to the sufferer was the forerunner of approaching death. Amy tried to smile. She dared not trust herself to speak, lest tears should drown her words ; and she too well remembered the ill effects produced by the last ebulition of feeling upon the exhausted frame of the COniiclooecl SS (SO