Beadle's Dime Novels No. 3: Myra, the Child of Adoption — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

= A STRANGE MEETING. 35 the little girl to her bosom, covering her lips and forehead with kisses. “Do you love me? Myra, do you love me?” she cried, holding back the face of the infant between both her trembling hands, and gazing fondly on it through her tears; “Do you love me, Myra?” At first the little girl was startled by the passionate tender- ness of her mother, and she struggled to get away from the posom that heaved so tumultuously against her form; but, as this touching cry for affection broke from Zulima’s lips, the child ceased to struggle, and lifting her clear eyes with a look of wondering pity, she clasped her little hands over her mother’s neck, and to her trembling lips pressed that little rosy mouth. “Don’t cry so, I do love you!” lisped the child, in its sweet imperfect language. These pretty words unlocked a flood of tender grief in the mother’s heart. She arose, with the child in her arms, and sat down upon the tomb. Smiles now broke through her tears, and during fifteen minutes it seemed to Zulima as if she had passed through that place of tombs into paradise, so sweet was the love that flooded her heart with every lisping tone of her child. But for the poor mother there was no lasting hap- piness. While her bosom was full of these sweet maternal feelings, there came tearing through the shrubbery a negro woman, panting with haste, and shouting in a coarse voice the name of little Myra. “We must part, my child! murmured Zulima, turning pale as the woman caught sight of her charge from a tomb which she had mounted to command a view of the grounds, and with a degree of self-command that was wonderful even to herself, she arose and led the little girl forward. “ Ob, Miss Myra, Miss Myra !” cried the negress, snatching up the little girl and Kissing her with a degree of eagerness that made poor Zulima shudder; “what should I have done if you had been lost in earnest ?” . Myra struggled to get away, and held out her arms to Zu- lima. How pale the poor mother was! Her eyes sparkled though at this proof of fondness in the child, and taking her from the woman, she kissed her forehead, and leading her a