Roxy Hastings — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

134 KOXY HASTINGS. faint voice, she arose, and asked Mr. Allard if he could tell her the number of her state-room. She was to have one in company with two of the children. | “ Most certainly I will show you to it,” said the gentle- man, looking concerned. “Gracious me! how pale you are, Miss Holden! Are you ill?” asked Mrs. A. | : “Yes—no—thank you—a little faint only. I shall be bet- ter in a few minutes.” , “Are you subject to faintness?” Mr. Allard asked her, as he conducted her below. “No, sir, no. I—I have been much excited. It will pass over. Let us hurry, if you please.” Her companion felt her arm tremble within his; he saw that she looked earnestly around the deck, and he knew she had had a sudden alarm. That there was a mystery about Miss Holden he was aware, but as her perfect re- spectability had been fully vouchsafed for, he did not seek to penetrate it. Yet now it bade fair to reveal itself. Probably she was running away from her friends, and she had seen some one in pursuit. Whose side should he take? He was undecided. His sympathies leaned toward anx- ious parents, whose life long love and care had perhaps been repaid by desertion in a freak of anger, for some real or fancied harshness. | Lucy saw his look of surprise and inquiry, perhaps of in- - decision. She knew that he might be applied to by her father for information, and she resolved to disclose to him the truth, and appeal to him for protection. This she did hurriedly and succinctly, but very forcibly, and with the added weight of streaming tears. “Iam of age,” she added, “and have the full legal and moral right to act for myself Do not betray me, or you will make me miserable for life.” “JT will not, you may depend on me,” said Allard. He conducted her to her state-room, bade her lock her- ‘self in and fear nothing. , Old Holden, as soon as he succeeded in getting aboard, bustled around through the cabins, and on the quarter- deck, peering into all feminine faces, not quite with a look of expectation, but like one who felt that he ought not to - leave this slight chance untried. Next he went to the cap- tain and asked to see a list of passengers. There were not many ladies. The name of Holden did not occur; and the | captain, who knew something of all his passengers, was confident of the genuineness of the names that were down, — Eomicbooks:co