The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. 169 To ascertain this point was to Mabel quite equivalent to know- ing when such a letter as she knew Captain Morton would write would arrive actually; and as the morning came, ber anxiety increased to such an extent that the observant Mrs. Jenkins could not but be aware that something of a very strangely inu- teresting nature indeed must be on the mind of her lodger. In vain, however, she, by all sorts of oblique hints, endeavored to get out of Mabel what it was that put her into such a perfect fever of expectation. She could get no sort of information or satisfaction. When, however, tired out at last with fishing for intelligence, she suid: ‘‘Really, Miss Morton, I am quite certain that you have some- thing on your mind which it would ease you very much to tell to some kind friend.” Mabel quietly replied: ‘*T am certainly in a state of anxiety about some affair which cannot concern you, and whivh I have made up my mind not to communicate.” | ‘“‘Oh, indeed! Well, I never—of course, miss, you are the best judge of that.” ‘Yes, of course,” said Mabel. ‘*Very good. I am sure it was only for your sake I asked. I am just about the last person in the world to be at all curious about other people’s affairs, I do assure you; and if ever I do go the length of condescending to listen to anybody about anything, it’s only with a sanginous hope, I can tell you, of doing ’em a world of good.” ‘* Mrs, Jenkins, I give you credit for the very best intentions, and beg you will say no more upon the subject.” This was most provoking, just to be given credit for good intentions, and quietly put off with that. doubtful compliment without a hope of the least hint of what it was that made Mabel s0 nervous and expectant. But there was no help for it. Poor Mrs, Jenkins was doomed to be the victim of om pointed curiosity, and as it certainly would not do to press a lodger too far who had no objections to a ‘little bill.” she falt herself, as she said, taking one thing in consideration with another, and putting this and that together, compelled to give up the affair of finding out Mabel’s business in London as a bad job. It was something to be relieved from the oblique inquiries of Mrs. Jenkins, which had really, to Mabel, become a serious inconvenience, and she felt pleased accordingly thereat, and waited with more patience than before the arrival of news from Morton Hall. But, alas! the hour when a letter ought to have been brought to her, or news of one having come to the magis- trate, came and went, and nothing ensued. Poor Mabel retired to her own dingy room, and wept alone for more than an hour. Then she made an effort to shake off such an amount of deep depression, and she paced the room several times, endeavoring to invent some plausible reason which should fully account for the non-arrival of news. ° Later considerably in the day the officer Long came and in- comicbooks. com