The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO, 1% 181 ing to her or coming personally once again to take her under their protection; but amid all the wild and improbable cogita- tions that from time to time took possession of her mind, she never for one moment committed the injustice of attributing their silence and non-appearance to a want of affection for her. Ah, no! she knew too well upon what a rock of sincerity that affection was based. She knew too well that no ordinary cir- cumstances could shake it, and it was in picturing to herself some calamities as having possibly occurred to the Mortons that she produced for herself such a world of mental anxiety. If ap- other day or two should elapse without receiving any tidings of them, she felt that her situation would become one of a most precarious character, and that she should be open to suspicions of having by no means adhered to the truth in the statements which she had made. And perhaps it was no small aggravation of her miseries that she should be so situated that she had no one who could counsel her well; that there was no friend near her to whom she could speak in perfect confidence of spirit, and with a knowledge that she was perfectly understood and believed. Far from Mrs. Jenkins being any such person, Mabel was quite delighted at her absence, if anything could be said to de- hight ber at such a time. But, by some means, what Mrs. Jenkins had said concerning her new lodger, Mabel could not forget, and without having seen him, or knowing why or wherefore, Mabel began to have u great dread of this mysterious personage. She ascertained, toward the evening of the same day, from the servant, that the stranger was at home, and had been shut up in his room for a considerable time, so that, in consequence of Mrs. Jenkins not being returned from her visit of consulta- tion to her mother, Mabel almost dreaded to go to her own apartinent in consequence of its proximity to that occupied by the stranger. When she reached her own she heard her fellow ledger pacing to and fro overhead with rapid strides; and she felt that, while he chose to continue that exercise, .ny attempt on her part to sleep would be completely out of the question. At length the pacing ceased; but it was almost immediately followed by a loud, mocking laugh, which fell on the ears of Mabel like a death-knell. There could be no mistakingit. It was the mendicant’s! And every pulse of Mabel’s was in an in- stant pale and cold as death. The striking of a neighboring clock broke the spell in which she was wrapt, and restored her to consciousness. Her first thought was to fly; and mechanically obeying its impulse, she seized the handle of the door, and turning back the bolt, hastily. half-opened it to pass forth. But at that moment her ear de- tected the créaking of steps upon the stairs; and she hastily drew back, nearly, but not quite closing the door, and leaving it just sufficiently ajar to enable her to see the lodger, who was passing down-stairs, and claim bis protection. This she could comicbooks. com