The King's Talisman — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

THE KING'S TALISMAN. - 147 day had been closed, I was accosted by an elderly woman, who bore in her arms an infant. She begged shelter for the night, and what I never refused to a human being, I readily granted. She spent the night beneath my roof, and in the morning she broke bread with me. After the morn- ing meal was concluded, she remained some time in earn- est conversation with myself and wife, upon religious and moral subjects, her chief aim seeming to be to ascertain if we joined with her in accepting the child of Bethlehem as the Messiah. She seemed to have studied deeply into the matters of which she spoke, and at length, apparently satis- fied with the result of her investigations, she asked us if we would, for a certain sum, take charge of the infant which she carried, at the same time explaining that she was alone in the world, and utterly unable to give the child such edu- cation as was meet. She told me that the child was of honest birth, and-urged upon me the charge. I looked upon the face of the infant, and as it stretched forth its little - hands toward me and smiled, my heart was warmed with a father’s love, and- having long desired a child to relieve the monotony of my home, I joyfully promised to take upon myself the charge, but I refused the money. ‘The woman, however, would listen to no refusal of that kind, and when she rose to depart, she prayed of me to be an honest, up- right, loving father to her child—then she imprinted a kiss upon its fair brow, and uttering a short prayer to God, she laid a well-filled purse in my lap, and hastily left my dwelling. She came afterward, but only at distant periods, until at last she ceased her visits altogether. ‘’he purse contained three hundred pieces of gold, but for nearly four years I touched not a mite of it; then, finding that it was not called for, I began to use it for the child’s educa- tion. At length Abdah Nazor presented himself one day at mv house, after the child had begun to gather strength, and offered to take charge of its education, and knowing the old a “S iGO (ECO AAICEl oxere)