Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 208: what you’re looking at

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

202 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. ‘<Well!” said my uncle eagerly, ‘as I stopped. ‘Go on, and finish.” *<That,” I answered, ‘‘is unfortunately impossible. This was, as it happened, the outer sheet of the papers, and was so severely scorched during the violent ordeal which at length brought them to light, that the rest of it crumbled into fragments in my hands, and the instructions contained in it are lost forever.” “Plague take it, how vexatious!” cried he. ‘‘Never mind; if time and patience can do aught, we will find your treasure yet.” “«< My treasure,” I said, “‘you need not go far to seek. She is in this house, and if I have but your consent to win her, the other, though it would be welcome enough, I allow, will scarce be missed by me.” “Ralph,” he said, msing and shaking me warmly by the hand, ‘“‘you are a good lad, and if May will not give her consent, by the Saints, she shall thrive as best she can on bread and water until she does.” ‘No, no,” I said, laughingly, ‘<I cannot consent to any such Spartan forcing of her inclinations. Though—” comichbooks.com