The Land Claim — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRANGER. 89 “Waal, I don’t know what the doctor that tends her would say about it. Are you a relation of hers ?” “JT have—ahem !—a great interest in her; perhaps can tell her something to her advantage. At all events, it is necessary I should see_her personally.” “She wouldn’t know you, if you was her best friend. . She is clean out of her head about this business of her father.” “It is only necessary I should see her; I will not speak to her at all, nor in any way disturb her. I wish to settle a question of identity.” . “Waal, I’ve nothing to say agin it myself. You can go along home with me now, if you think it will be for her advantage, as you say.” : “T only said perhaps,” returned the stranger; “ I wish to be certain about it.” As they were not then far from the constable’s house, a walk of three minutes more brought them to its unpretending portal. The constable soon explained to his wife the errand on which the strange gentleman had come. “ She’s not looking like herself,” said Mrs. Wyman, as she led the way into a small, neatly-arranged bedroom on the first floor. “She’s had to have her hair all cut off to-day, and she had such lots of pretty curls it was a great pity to put the scissors to’em. And then her face is changed, too, and looks peaked and sunk to what it did, and wonderful for such a little while as she’s been sick.” Peaked and thin indeed looked the delicate young face, and more peaked and more ghastly on account of the absence of its former abundant vail of flaxen curls. The sharp outlines were not agreeable, yet the stranger gazed at them long and serutinizingly. =i “This is her hair,’ said he, touching with his finger the heap of curls still lying on a table. “Yes. I thought I'd keep them to look at till her hair gets growed out again. It was such a pity!” The stranger took from his breast a small miniature on ivory, and handed it to Mrs. Wyman, at the same time asking a she saw any resemblance between that picture and Newcome when she was in health. “The dear Lord!” exclaimed the good woman, in admiring - : comiclbooks.com