The Land Claim — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

70 THE LAND-CLAIM. engagement with your caughter. I love her, and she has promised to be my wife— “Ah, she is forward for a girl of her age,” interrupted Newcome, sarcastically. “Not without your approbation, Mr. Newcome; she has promised nothing without your approval.” “My daughter is disposed of,” answered Newcome, briefly, with a frown. Seeing that the man was doggedly incorrigible, Allen turned to Alice, who sat, leaning her forehead on her hands, in motionless despair. “Are you sold to the Frenchman ” he asked, in a voice that would be husky in spite of his efforts to contrel it. She gave him a rapid sign of assent in her anxiety lest he should say something further disagreeable to her father. “Do you consent to it? to be bartered away like a squaw to an Indian trader?” cried Allen, losing all control of his feelings. “TI obey my father,” answered Alicia, with that falmness of manner which comes from exhaustion of sufferin “Your father! Much claim he has to that title !” exclaimed the young man, in the highest excitement. “ Father, indeed !’ and he stood fixed, in anger and pain of disappointment He almost wished, at that moment, that he had let the lynchers hang the man. Alicia, as if sympathetically informed of his thoughts, signed him to come near her. “Don’t be angry with him,” she whispered, “but try to save him, for my sake.” Allen did not promise. But hé took that opportunity to press- her hand, and to whisper a word of counsel in her ear. “ Alicia, your guardian is waiting for you,” interrupted her father, sternly. She immediately rose to go. “ May I come to see you sometimes ?” she asked, asaty “ Ask your guardian ?” was the freezing answer. Choking back her tears, the unhappy daughter approached the prisoner’s chair, and, bending her lips to his cheek, kissed him lightly, as if afraid of being repulsed; and then. Conmmicloooks.sconn