Laura Brayton — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

184 LAURA BRAYTON. CHAPTER XXXIX. PUTNAM TELLS OF HIS ESCAPE. “Do your hours pass wearily?” asked the lady who sat in the subterranean room with Laura. “No. The stories you have told me about the sea, and the sunny land of flowers where you have dwelt so long, and that beautiful island from which you came, have deeply interested me, so much SO that I have not counted time.” | “That island would have been a paradise had it been a chosen home,” said the lady, with a sigh. “But when one must stay, there is no content in even a paradise. A prison, with every luxury in life, is still a prison, because liberty is not there.” Laura looked wonderingly up in the great, earnest eyes of the lady. 3 “My words and story are yet in a degree shrouded in a mystery, my dear girl,” said she. “But the time is close at hand when it.can all be cleared ‘away, when you will know all of my past history, know that also which I hope will repay you in hap- piness for some of the great sorrow which has darkened your young life. Be cheerful, be hopeful, the vail will soon be raised.” “Is Mr. Putnam coming back here?” asked Laura. “T expect him,” said the lady. “The lawyer to whom I sent certain important papers will probably wish to communicate with me. I do not wish the captain to leave his post, for if that fiend in human Gomicbhooks.co