Mezzoni the Brigand — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. 97 compelled him to intimate to the count, very gently, © that it was always best to be prepared, but still not to look on the dark side. He said that he thought all people who lay sick were more at ease, and more likely to get well, if the mind was contented, and if he (the count) thought of any business arrange- ments, looking to the possibility of death, which re- quired adjustment, perhaps it would be best to have the matter attended to. ‘‘T am entirely prepared in that respect,’ said the sick man. | ‘Ah, that is well,’’ said the doctor. ‘*Not impera- tive, you know, but safe.”’ ‘“T have left everything to my good wife here,’’ he continued, and as he said so he stretched out his hand feebly to Signora Amadeo. ‘How hot your hands are!’’ she exclaimed, with a shudder, as he touched her own. “Yes. I feel as though there was a fire inside of me,’’ he replied. ‘“‘He is feverish to-day,’ said the doctor. “I will leave some cooling drops.”’ ‘Please to do so, doctor, and write down the di- rections as to giving them,”’ said the wife. | “Oh, give them freely, they are innocent and can- not do any harm.”’ The Signora Amadeo, as she stood there, was the personification of striking womanly beauty. She was tall for one of her sex, her figure superbly rounded, her eyes large, black, and lustrous, and her manner exquisitely graceful. The physician paused for a moment to note her majestic loveliness as she stood beside the sick man’s pillow. She might be twenty-eight or nine years of age, not more, and comicboo > .S | e 5 & ' ’ ss % .