The Illegal Marriage — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

74 THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE. “You used to beat her, I have been told; but you shall never strike me.” She spoke with a vigor and boldness that he had never heard in a woman before, and he started back, thoroughly cowed, as she took a step toward him. She held the stick in her right hand, partially behind her, while her left was raised to keep him back. “You would murder your father—your old father, for the sake of your lover,” he said, with a piteous whine. She was about to throw down the stick and fall at — his feet, when, close behind them, they heard a step on the graveled walk, and Ogletree, the overseer, came on the porch. Dropping the stick, she appealed to him for aid, and Morgan, how completely exhausted, was led passively to his room. There he sat in his‘arm- chair for hours after, mumbling incoherently and picking about with his bony fingers, in the manner peculiar to men with this kind of delirium. This was but one of the many scenes during that fortnight, each wearing more and more upon Cecy, and upon her father as well. Yet, would she not tell them to the doctor, for fear he would insist upon sending her father away. She was patient through it all, and watched him, and tended him with a devotion that was touching. Meantime, her letters to Alfred Guerry, though frequent, detailed but little of her home sorrow. She would not worry him with her troubles. Yet she had to tell him that her father opposed the match, and now and then related the opposition that was brought to bear upon her. One evening, Doctor Trippe found Morgan worse comicbooks ~ (Efe)