Witch Hazel; or, The Secret of the Locket — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

— When a puny little child, only a few months old, was brought to Sandy Morton and his good wife, with the sad tidings that he was all they had left to be the eomfort and stay of their declining years, it seemed at first as if life had lost all its charm for them—asg if their burden was heavier than they could bear. For two years Sandy Morton’s wife devoted herself to the care of the child whom she grew to love most fondly; then she was called to another world, and Sandy felt as lf but a very slender thread bound him to earth. But day by day the tendrils of his heart twined themselves about the boy thus twice left motherless, until he became the very life of his life, the joy and solace of his old age, and now, at the age of ten, he believed him the finest boy in all the kingdom, One dark eveningin November, about this time, Sandy Morton and his grandson were sitting by the fire in their snug kitchen. The old gentleman was reading his weekly paper, Percy was engaged witha copy of “Livingston's Travels,” of which he was very fond, while Mrs, Butler was busy with the week's mending. comichooks.com