The Yankee Champion — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

96 THE YANKEE CHAMPION. | CHAPTER XI. THE HOMELESS. Let us leave the privateer and her prize to get through the night as best they can, while we look | into the house of the old Tory. It was in the evening, and Silas Ryan was away from home. Within the small kitchen sat Helen and Gideon, the former engaged in knitting, and the latter reading a small English newspaper. To have seen Helen Ryan’s fingers ply the busy needles, one would never have supposed that she was utterly blind! but industry and perseverance had rewarded her with the ability to do much of useful labor, and, when her brother was away, labor of some kind was all that made her life bearable. ‘“‘How dismal this cold wind sounds,’’ murmured Helen, with a shudder. “It does, indeed,’’ returned her brother, in a half abstracted manner. ‘It seems dull and gloomy here,’’ continued the blind girl, as she cast her head around as though she could see what she felt. ‘It is gloomy,’’ uttered Gideon, in a tone of ear- nestness that made his companion start; ‘‘And do you, too, feel sad?’’ “Ay, my sister.”’ ‘*And what makes you so?”’ “Much, much, Helen.”’ “Then tell it to me, and I will soothe your troubled spirit. I will be cheerful, my brother, cheerful as those birds that sing beneath my winduw in the ~ summer days, if it will make you more happy.”’ Eomic eae <P ol A J ~ he