A Silver Brand — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

ORs A SILVER BRAND. The taxidermist told her the story. But quick- witted, ardent-souled Lina missed the accustomed spirit and enthusiasm. She gave a restless, im- patient glance toward her companion. | Nat saw it, and his lip just trembled beneath a restrained -smile. Penelope saw it also, and her forehead wrinkled into a little frown. She rose, however, and went away to the other corner of the room, and bent over the miniature tree set thickly with stuffed birds of all varieties. Then she took up one of the volumes lying on the table, and went away to the farther window, and sat down there, and was presently so absorbed in it as to be obliv- ious to all things about her. ~So at least Lina thought, and Nat himself finally decided. And gradually the pair forgot her presence and fell back into the old familiar way. . © “Tina, dear,” spoke Nat, gayly, as he opened the box at hand, “I have brought you a memento of my last ramble. Lend me your hat, and I’ll give you ae ae prettier, to my mind, than those rib- ons.” Lina pulled off the hat, watching his movements with shining eyes, and Nat fastened at the fronta small twig of the coral rose-berries on which was erched, so delicately as to seem just poising there with its outspread wings, a tiny ant of a hum- ming-bird glistening with as lovely colors indeed as if set with jewels. Lina, naturally enough, uttered a girl’s cry of transport. Penelope must indeed have been lost in her book, for she never turned her eyes. “For me? Oh, Nat, that exquisite little creature! How charming it looks! Who but vou would ever have thought of such a lovely ornament.” “Nay. 1 don’t claim the originating it, my child. Isaw a city miss sporting .a great awkward gull, and straightway I understood how becoming a Pen would be fora certain somebody’s at.” “You dear old Nat!,. What adarling itis! But,” here Lina paused, hat in hand, looking down wist- fully at the life-like semblance of the restless little ~~ * comicbooks com