Lady Evelyn — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

~ Old Friends Meet. yo Ee haps if I saw a living face like this, I too might yield to the spell of its beauty; but I much prefer love a la mode to these fierce, powerful passions. What could mamma mean by all these wild hints of suspected murderers and: compulsory marriages? Poor mamma! I begin to fear that brooding over the past is affecting her brain.” CHAPTER: VII: OLD FRIENDS MEET’. The tramp who had waylaid Lady Evelyn Desmond passed that stormy night in the shelter of the gypsy camp. He fraternized with these dusky thieves and prophets, partook of their savory supper, and slept beneath their canvas canopy in. security. | “I don’t mind staying with you for a bit,’ he said to Phara. “I’m likely to remain in this neighborhood for some days, and | prefer lodging in your tents, my friend, to putting up at the Prince’s Feathers, below. I’m as poor a devil as ever walked now, but I'll have a pocketful of sovereigns before the sun sets to-morrow.’ “Will you, brother?” the tall gypsy asked, rather du- biously. “Where will you get them? Sovereigns don't grow on the bushes like blackberries hereabouts.” The tramp nodded his head sagaciously as he lit a grimy little pipe at the glowing coals. “Never you mind, my dusky friend; they'll grow as plenty as blackberries for me.- I’ve got a secret here,” | tapping his sunburned forehead, “that’s worth a little mint to me. I’ve spent the last eighteen years of my life on Norfolk Island, chained like a dog, fed like a dog, used worse than any dog; but that’s all over now. Il spend the rest of my days in clover, and a certain noble earl, not a thousand miles*from here, shall pay the piper.” Further than this the tramp declined to divulge. He wrapped himself up presently in a dirty blanket, and slept the sleep of the just on his turfy bed, while the long hours of the tempestuous night wore on. He was up betimes next morning, shared the matinal refection of the swarthy tribe, made his toilet by a plunge in a neighboring brook, and started for Warbeck Hall. 2 Bah | comicbooks,co ; . ’ Pia ody re) ‘ Ady