Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

20 BETRAYED AND BETRAYER. everything else, has a penchant for forsaking the old quarters for the new. | But she usually leaves a shadow of her mantle be- hind; that’s why Laurel Place had an air above the comion, though many of the present householders were sadly out-at-the-elbows, so to speak, and were therefore much concerned in hiding the fact from public gaze. That’s why there were a good many lodgings to let in Laurel place. And No. 6 was a very fair sample of its neighbors. The bell was evidently grudgingly answered by a young woman of Hibernian lineage. Was a lady named Bluff stopping there? She was. Could the captain see her? : The servant didn’t know, but she would find out; so Ezra Trafton was piloted into the little front parlor. It was an oblong apartment, yet showing traces of former finery in the way of faded decorative work, and rusty-looking panels; but to the esthetic eye of the captain, it was undiseuisedly shabby, and he shuddered as his sense of smell was assailed by certain odors of cooking that sifted up from the region below. He was not kept waiting long. _ In a few moments Mary Bluff, looking very pale and constrained of manner, entered the rooun. Ezra rose from his chair and bowed in’ a conven- tional way, as though even this bit of politeness cost him an effort. | ‘‘You have come,’’ she said, coldly. “I have come, though for what purpose I know not. ‘T’o have a woman’s reproaches, I suppose,’’ he replied, stiffly. ‘‘T have asked vou. here, Ezra Trafton, or Ezra Anderson, as until the last few days you were known to me, to say that, having unmasked your perfidy, and knowing now your true name and position, I in- com (€ 700 <Sya( ee)