The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 220: what you’re looking at

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

THE MESSENGER - BIRD 203 by sending a fat turkey or a brace of pullets as a propitiation at Christmas. But of all the friends and acquaintances of the Marshalls who were aware of the eldest young lady’s fondness for the feathered tribe, not one of them was ever admitted to the knowledge of the circumstance that she had a bedchamber prettily fitted up in the highest story of the house, and that in the roof of this chamber there were precisely the same contrivances as those which we have already explained at the Red Dragon on Boughton Hill and the Dancing Bear near Gravesend. Yet such was the fact, and in that neat but somewhat airily situated chamber did Kate Marshall sleep, and whenever the tinkling bell sounded she was as ready to spring from her couch as either Joe Dean or Becky Patch at their respective habitations. An elegant little French timepiece standing upon the chest of drawers intimated that it wanted ten minutes to three o’clock when the tinkling summons was given, and Miss Kate was suddenly startled from a very pleasant dream in which the image of her intended husband, the captain of a small trading-vessel, was conspicuous. Leaping from the couch, she at once perceived by the aid of her night-lamp, which she always kept burning, a beautiful carrier-pigeon upon a rail a couple of feet below the trap-door. Her plump white arm was immediately outstretched to receive the little messenger, and the next moment the sweet bird was fondly nestling in its kind friend’s bosom. ‘Then she gave it water, and detaching the little billet from beneath its wing, hastily opened it. A small manuscript-book which she took from a drawer, and which was filled with dates, references, and initial letters, promptly. refreshed her mem- ory so as to supply the key to the reading of the scroll, which without such a clue would necessarily have been a mere jargon as incomprehensible as the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Having made herself acquainted with the words upon the paper, she proceeded to administer food to the bird. ‘This being done, she fondled and caressed it again for a minute or two, and then let it escape through the trap-door in the roof of her chamber. Kate Marshall now hastily shpped on some clothing, and stealing down-stairs, knocked gently at the chamber where her father and mother slept. Mr. Marshall immediately rose, put on a dressing: gown, and admitted his daughter. COnNIEDOOkKS (FO)