The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 189: what you’re looking at

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

180 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. CHAPTER XIV. The runic sign, the cufic stone, Egypt’s dark mysteries—all are known; For we are of the banded three, To whom the word and sign were given, ~ Whose might unfolds that mystery Which the angel read as he fell from heaven. Day was beginning to break, the Dispensary clock had struck the hour of four, when poor Meg, who had sat up anxiously awaiting her husband’s return, started from the chair by the expiring embers of the kitchen fire, where she had been sitting, trying for the last three hours alternately to rock and argue herself into composure. Her blood was at fever heat. During the many years they had been married, Tim’s Dick had never been absent a single night from his home before. A vague presentiment was on her mind that some- thing dreadful had happened. She knew the heart of her husband too well to suppose, even for a moment, that he had purposely absented himself merely to punish her for the little breach of conjugal discipline in the morning. Besides, he had forgiven her, and, with Tim, to forgive was to forget. ecomnuicloooks (SO