Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

4A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY. = 19% filled in with cement, while all the floors were of red brick, laid in zigzag pattern. The furniture was of solid oak, but plain to clumsiness, nd everything about the place betrayed how utterly in- different to the comforts and elegancies of life the owner had been, and Everet could not help contrasting it with the luxuries that were stored away in that little cottage which he had visited only a tew days previous. The book-cases alone possessed any claim to elegance, They were also of oak, like the other articles of furniture, but somewhat ornamented, and glazed with heavy plate glass, showing how tenderly the recluse had guarded the books that he had loved so well. There was a spacious fire-place at one end of the room, . in which there were a pair of rude andirons, and a clumsy pair of tongs, with a shovel, stood beside it. The apartment was light and pleasant, for there were four windows in it—two on the front, which looked toward the east, and two more on the south. It was just the nook fora student and a recluse,.and, in spvite of its isolation from all the world, there was a sort of charm about the place, even to the gay and society-loving Everet Mapleson. At the back of the house there was a small wooden structure, now fast fallng to decay, and a yard fenced “in, where, evidently, Robert Dale had kept his one horse, cow, and hens, while beyond this there was a patch of cleared ground, which, doubtless, had once been a kitchen parden. Everet sat down in the great chair before the desk, after completing his round of investigation, and feil to musing upon what he had seen. He tried to imagine what the appearance of Robert Dale had been—what his temperament and disposition. — Bitter and vindictive he must have been, to have so hated his brother that he allowed him to die in poverty, and his family to struggle on for years afterward for a mere pittance, while he had thousands lying idle and useless; surly and churlish, too, he surmised. tu have — hidden himself away from all society there in the depths of the forest. The place seemed invested with an unearthly mystery, and it was not strange, taking into consideration the life its owner had lived, and ths death he had died, leaving ae trace behind him of the vast possessions that had been 8. GOmMmIiGcbDoo S (E(0) =)