Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

144 EVERET MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. among us, and every man Jack of us took as much inter- est in him as if he’d been our very own; but it cast a gloom over the whole lot when it came to be known that the gentle little mother had to go. I never saw a fellow so upset as Dale was over it; he went about with a_ face as white as a sheet, and all bowed down like an old man. Not one of us dared to speak tu him he looked so awful, and we ail kept out of his way as much as we could. If came at last—the final blow; the captain’s lovely wife— pretty Annie Dale—was dead, and the only baby in the place was motherless. “Annie Dale!” breathed Everet Mapleson, actually growing dizzy as he caught the name. . *Ves, that was her name,” the man answered, with a sigh, ‘‘and I shall never forget the day they buried her, They had a parson over from Fort Union, a grave-spoken bué pleasant-faced man, and he almost took us right into heaven where that sweet woman had gone, with the beautiful, solemn words he spoke. The coffin was solid rosewood, ana came from Santa Fe, with another great box of sweet smelling fiowers. The captain never showed himself that day; he just sat alone by the coffin in the front room of his house and never made a sound until the men went in to take it away, when he gave a groan, that I shali never forget as long as I live. and fell on his face to the floor where he was picked up in a dead faint. Poor fellow! he was worn-out with watching, to say nothing of his grief. I tell you that was a sorry day for the camp, for there wasn’t more’n a half-dozen women in the place, and most of them were none of the vest; though after the captain’s wife came there they seemed to take more pride in being kind of decent. Well, she was buried un- der a great cypress tree where she loved to sit on warm days, and the captain had it all fenced off, after a while, and put a white stone up by the grave with just her first name on it, and the miners. rough as they were, never let the flowers wither on that grave as long as I staid there. I don’t know how it was afterward, for it’s more than twenty years since the poor thing cied.” The man had to stop and use his handkerchief vigor- ously just here, and Everet could see that he was deeply moved over the memory of that sad time. ‘‘What became of the child?” the young man asked, after a moment. “Well, when the Dales first went there to live, they hired a girl to serve Mrs. Dale, for she was delicate, and comicloookks.€