Thrice Wedded, but Only Once a Wife — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

THRICE WEDDED. | 125 touched by the many engaging qualities which Robert pos- sessed, other than with a pure sisterly affection. She never dreamed of loving him, herself, which many a girl of less mind and character would surely have done. ‘Their inter- course was pure, free, and ennobling, such as two delicate, accomplished, and high-minded persons could not help en- joying to the uttermost. Notwithstanding all this, there were many hours of weari- ness and impatience which our hero spent by himself. It chafed him almost beyond endurance to be thus shut off from all communication with the outer world; to be so con- fined that he could do nothing for himself, or demand or se- cure redress from others for his wrongs; and most of all, cut off from all possibility of rescuing his darling from the fate which he had been told awaited her. He would have felt tenfold more miserable had he even dreamed that not a dozen yards from his own chamber, which hour after hour he paced in such an angry and dis- contented mood, his father lay in a dark and dismal cell, a close and unhappy prisoner. Poor Mr. Ellerton was unhappy indeed, for he felt that he had almost willfully thrown himself into his present situ- ation, by so utterly disregarding the warning he had received. A week had passed since his abduction, and as he sat brood- ing over his situation, a slight rustling outside his door caused him to look quickly up, with a faint hope at his heart that some friend might be at hand. 3 His hope was quickly crushed, however, as he caught sight of the ugly face, with its cruel and sinister expression, which peered eagerly at him from between the iron bars of his prison door. ; Ugh! what a horrible face it was! with its wolfish grin and snaky red-black eyes. Despite its ugliness it had a familiar look; but where or when he had ever seen it he could not — recall to mind. ‘‘Ha! my friend,” said the stranger, in a disagreeable voice, and with intense irony. ‘‘You don’t seem to remember me, do you?” | | ‘No, sir, I do not,” was the reply. ‘‘And yet there is some- thing about your face that seems familiar.” ‘‘Um!—it’s a pleasant face to you, no doubt,” was the sneer- ing rejoinder. Mr. Ellerton made no answer. He loathed the very sight — Comicboo <S (e (6)