Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

226 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. It was improved not a little in appearance by this operation, but even then the coarse varnish -hastily laid on had become so dis- colored by time, especially in the lower part, that I thought it best to remove it alto- gether. Patience and turpentine accom- plished this at length, and the painting stood forth almost as fresh as if it had but recently been laid on the panel. My wife entered while I was engaged upon this laborious task, but as I did not wish to disappoint her by exciting hopes that might never be realized, I pretended that my exer- tions were prompted solely by devotion to the memory of Hester Roanoke. When I had thus cleaned it sufficiently I began a close examination of the entire sur- face. For a long time my attention pro- duced no result, but I at last made a discov- ery which promised to be of importance. .The letters on the book which the figure held in its hands were not mere meaningless scrawls, as is usually the case, but absolute printed signs. From the position of the volume these were ordinarily upside down, and almost illegible, but this was easily comicbooks.com {