Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

168 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. rooms, was at that time a mere relic of former dignities, for it served me, from necessity as well as from choice, for all pur- poses combined save sleeping, being in fact almost the only spot left habitable in what I had remembered as a large and well- appointed house. Here then I was sitting in no amiable "frame of mind. I had that same afternoon received a severe rebuff, having added to my manifold misfortunes that of rejected love. My cousin May, though at first somewhat shy and distant with one who had grown so out of all recognition as to seem a stranger, had gradually melted as time passed, and be- fore long our relations, though not quite so unrestricted in their expression, had practi- cally returned to their state when, a boy of eleven, I had departed for my nine years’ perilous adventures. I loved her passionately in short, and when at last I gathered courage to put a period to my wooing I found that her childish affection had undergone no abatement, and that_as far as she was concerned my higheat hopes were crowned with happiness. comicbooks.com , a8 ecko ae