At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

AT A GIRU’S MERCY. 119 was a faithful listener, and would keep what she heard to herself. ‘‘And you were in the midst of all those horrors!” cried Nan, as he spoke—lightly it might be, but even then proving the terrors of the time—of the haps and mishaps to himself, and the bravery that met and crushed the turbulent spirit. ‘‘If I had known it was so dreadful, papa, I never could have slept as I did. Of course I knew it must be pretty bad to keep you down there, but I never dreamed it was like that.” She shuddered and touched caressingly the hand she held under hers on his knee. She searched his face with anxious eyes to find if there were traces of any harm to him in this fight, and the tender mouth quivered as she thought of the possible ending to the day. He patted the curly head reassuringly, and smiled into the uplifted eyes. He could smile now. The danger was over, both to the woman in the room overhead and to himself out of the city. The wrinkle of anxiety born of his love for the wife, whom he felt hourly he might be called upon to lose, was smoothing itself out, and his face, rugged and seamed as it was with the life he did not find easy, watching the course of the war, and knowing his own inabil- ity to join therein, still had a light of renewed hap- piness upon it that did the girl’s heart good to see. She laughed at him, and leaned her soft cheek against the hand she held. ‘“Tt’s so good to have you, papa,’’ she said. “Mr. Blake wished to telegraph to your office and learn of the real state of the case, but I would not let him. I did not wish to be under even the slightest obligation to him. He has been very nice—for him —-I must say, but I don’t want him to do anything comicbooks |