Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 109 beckoned, but had no voice to call; then I sank back, and leaning my head on my hands gazed wildly forth again. It was dressed in a military cloak, a cap with a golden band on its head, a sword trailing. Its hand, which was gloveless and seemed bones, covered with glistening skin, hung down listlessly, its head drooped forward on its breast. “ Cecil!” I called, huskily. as in a dream; the sound reached him, for he raised his head, and I knew that the face in the dark was looking at me. Suddenly the carriage moved off; I was dashed back on the seat, and Nelson drove rapidly down to the first gang- way. I clenched my hands together. Why had Fate stepped in and dashed so strange a sight from my eyes? And then, almost instantly, incredulity attacked me. Could this in- deed have been the murdered man? Surely fancy had tricked me with a grotesque coincidence. I tore my thoughts from so mad a fantasy and shook off the delirious impres- sion. My mother was approaching the carriage door, leaning on her happy husband’s arm, and her eyes were directed in an eager gaze toward me, and the joy of seeing her swept . away every other feeling, as I sprang into her_arms. ‘‘ My child?’ muttered the sweet, low voice of my infancy; “thank Heaven that you are still left to us.” . ‘‘ Welcome, dearest mother,” I sobbed; ‘‘ welcome to our earts!” I clung to her sheltering bosom, and wept my lonely, tired heart light; for, ah, it was so sweet to see, after these long months of pain, the dear mother herself. But I quickly recovered myself, and, ashamed of my self- abandonment, hurried her into the carriage, where we could pour forth our mental emotions. It was a sweet, tender face, my mother’s, with no regular- ity of outline, but great delicacy of complexion, and that peculiar attractiveness and self-possession of style which makes the American woman second to the women of no other land in expression; her brows level and slight, but gracious; her lips fine in contour, though expressive of quiet firmness, and her eyes—ah, these were the beauties of her face, and bright as in her fresher years; they were large, blue eyes, clear as a transparent stream, and very like (E(0) GComicbooks