Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

LUCY. 3? dwellings might envy. Even the ordinary household utensils, arranged on the shelves of a triangular closet in one corner, were polished till they shone like silver. The occupants of the room were a male anda female. The former was a tall, spare man, slightly bowed by age, which had also thinned his gray locks, and planted deep wrinkles on his brow. A glance from his face to that of the male portrait could not have failed to detect a resemblance between them; though one could hardly have turned from contemplating the flushed cheek and bright eye of five-and-twenty, as imaged on the canvas, to the faded features of the original, without a sigh for the havoc which the intervening years had made. His companion was a female, whose slender form was just rounding into womanhood, and whose sweet countenance — exhibited a happy expression of blended innocehce and intel- _ ligence, such as Correggio loved to study and portray. The peach-like bloom upon her face was heightened to crimson at the entrance of Charles Dudley ; while the deepening dimple wf her cheek, and the added brightness of her eyes, showed dat the emotion caused by his visit was of the soul. “ Good morning to you,” said Dudley, in a pleasant voice, “or I suppose it would be more proper for me to say ‘ good-day,’ as the hours have progressed so far.” “ Good-day, I’m glad to see you,” said the old man, rising and cordially shaking his hand. “ And how do you do;Lucy ?” asked Dudley, imprinting a warm kiss upon the glowing cheek o. the young maiden, whose half-averted countenance was ruffled by no prudish “I was later than I intended to be,” said Dudley, taking the proffered chair. “ There was a little matter out in the wood in which I had to bear a slight part.” The old man looked at him with such an inquiring expres- sion, that Dudley had no alternative but to explain : “ Hearing high words, I made my way through the under- growth, to find Ned Overton the hunter, and that peddler they call Dodge, engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle. [ stepped between them, just in time to save the peddler from getting his head broken, although, in a fair fight, he is a match for the burly hunter.” Cconmiclooolks.comn _