Roxy Hastings — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

-—— 128 ROXY HASTINGS. She looked earnestly into her father’s eyes, and ‘said, with mournful but not trembling voice : “Tf we had not driven him away !” 7 “Tut, tut! We did no such thing. He went into the army of his own free choice, as thousands of others have done. Itis the fortune of war. And he has won fame. He is spoken of asa brave soldier, and now he has died for his country, and he will be praised in history. What better fate could you ask for him?” y» Lucy looked steadily at her father, as if she were really trying to find balm for her wounded spirit in his words. But she did not reply. But the father’s cruelty was not at an end. When, a few days later, he heard of Lee’s escape (and he heard it with uneasiness, if not with decided regret), he withheld the news from Lucy, and forbade any to impart it to her. “Tt will only unsettle her mind again,” he said, “and if he does not return to the city within a few weeks, as he - most likely will not, we can probably keep it from her until she is married. It will be quite time enough then to tell her, and ease her conscience of the idea of having . caused his death, for that, I believe, is the principal thing that ails her now.” “Tf that is all, we had better tell her at once,” said Grace, the third daughter. “T did not say it was all, child. I said it was the princi- pal trouble. Neither did I ask your advice.” Grace was silenced, but indignant. Two mornings afterward, while the wedding prepara- tions were still slowly progressing, and while the sewing- room was littered with shreds of lace, and satin, and broken flowers, Lucy Holden was missing from her home. The quiet maiden, who had so long submitted unrepin- ingly to a father’s iron will, had at last plucked up spirit and run away. CHAPTER XXV. _ “sam AIN’T AMONG THEM.” Lucy left the following letter in her boudoir: “To My Parents :—I have left you forever! Life has nothing in store for me but misery, and I can better endure my wretchedness away from those associations which constantly remind me of its cause. If Heaven does not, in kindness, terminate my existence, or take from me that reason and memory which are goads and tortures to me now, Gomicbooks.co