Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. 173 whom I had learned to call my little May— now, alas, mine no longer. I was about to clasp her to my heart, when the recollection of her father’s stern decision checked me, and she evidently saw that in my eyes which prompted her to draw back ’ from the expected embrace. “Oh, Ralph! what is the matter?” she cried in alarm, and I sank at her feet with no other answer than a groan of overwhelm- ing despair. Needless were it to relate here all the details of our mournful discussion. It is sufficient to say that I found May could be as firm in her determination to do what she believed was right as ever her father could be. That she loved me she did not hesitate to repeat ; that she should never love, and would never marry, any other man she fre- quently affirmed ; but she would be no party to disobeying or evading her father’s com- mands. I felt, and I fear me spoke, harshly about what I unjustly termed, her fickleness, and finally, in a burst of unreasonable wrath, left her weeping bitterly, and returned home in a tumult of revolt against a sense of injury (, a comicbooks.com