The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. 25 us by the man who had bought it, at the request, he said, of a friend.” “It could not have been my uncle?” said Henry Beacham, musingly. ‘Qh, no!’’exclaimed at once both Amy and her mother. The young man coloured to the temples. ‘Mr. Grindem,” timidly added the daughter, ‘‘showed his kindness in a different manner. Al- though young, he gave my brother a situation in his counting-house, and paid, I have heard, several of my poor father’s debts.” ** It could not have been Gridley,” added Richard, ‘for he has never, since I have known him, been the possessor of a guinea.” A knock at the door announced the arrival of the subject of their conversation. The old man was placed in a seat opposite Richard, in whose cheek, flushed by the fever of disease and the fire, he read, as he thought, the sign of renovated health. ‘Yes,’ said the invalid, coughing, for Gridley’s clothes were impregnated with tobacco, and_the mere odour excited the irritability of his lungs, “I am better ; a month’s rest will see me strong again. We were just wondering,” he added, ‘‘ when you entered, who could have been kind enough to repurchase and send back the piano, which my mother was forced to sell when my poor father died.” ‘* How should I know?” demanded the old clerk, with an uneasy look. COniiclooecl SS (SO