Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

20 Roauvke of Roanoke fall, years old at the time. My error, however, was the more excusable that her hair was al- ready of a snowy whiteness, and her once beautiful face seamed and wrinkled, though trouble more than time had set those marks upon her. She was ever full of kindness and love to me, but if the truth be told I was not & little afeard of her. She was imperious in ber manners, with little gentleness if much affection in her speech and conduct; at times Bhe would sit gazing apon me with fearsome grimness, making my heart sink within me in dread that I had in some way offended, for I knew not then that, though she looked on me, she saw me not, beholding only the past and all that she had endured. But I must hasten on with my tale or I shall grow tedious, and my reader will cast away the book with a ‘‘ Pshaw, these old do- tards!” and take up for the more amusement one of those stage plays wherein perchance he may find more ill than pood, though I must own that I have read with much pleas- ure and profit some of those by Mr. Home, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Bickerstaffe, and that excellent piece of work “The Beggar’s comichooks.com ' |