Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 272: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 267 she then proposed that she should leave the house at once, carrying whatever she could find with her. After winning a complete ascendency over her, Cartier asked afew careless questions about the lady whom she had let in. ‘¢Her name was Mrs. Joselyn; she had come from Eng- land and taken apartments in this house four days ago. She went out every day, and seemed sometimes to have an awful temper. All the boarders were afraid of her, and she spoke to none of them. She had a baby, pretty young and rather sickly, and it was her idea (the girl’s) that Mrs. Joselyn, maybe, was on the hunt for her husband, who seemed to have deserted her. | | «<¢What do you think of this baby? said the nurse, throwing off her shawl and displaying the face.of the sleep- ing child. | ‘‘The girl stared in surprise, then looked behind its ear, and uttered an exclamation. ‘© <«Sure as death, it’s Mrs. Joselyn’s baby! I know her by the bit of a cross behind the ear! Gracious! woman, how came you by her? You aren’t a witch, sure?’ <‘* Mrs. Joselyn made a mistake, and grabbed the wrong baby in a hurry,’ said Cartier, significantly. ‘Now Pll put you in the way of getting your fortune made, if ye help me to get back the child Iwas appointed nurse for. I don’t want no fuss made about anything I’m concerned in, as you may easily suppose from the number of prisons I’ve cheated; so if we can get the exchange made privately and then be off —the better for you and me. How came that mark there? It’s not a cross, it’s a lance.” _ | , «¢ «Lance, cross, poker, or shovel, all’s one to me, so’s you put me in the way to make my fortune. She drew it with a sharp needle yesterday, and when the blood filled the scratch she rubbed black powder on it. I held the baby while she did 1t.’ ‘¢ «Tord, now! ejaculated the other woman, in a tone of awe. ‘What do you think it was for?’ ‘«*Dunno. Maybe to keep the devil off. Wish she’d warn him of her temper, for it’s a ‘‘stunner,” I can tell ye. But look here, now, it’s not for nothing that there thing was scratched into the poor brat’s flesh. She said to me when the black powder was all rubbed on. ‘‘ Now, my girl, look at it well—look at it to remember it. The ‘ Bloody Spear;’ imprint it on your heart; for I may die, and this child may CORNUCG OOO S (©)