The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 201: what you’re looking at

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

/ 194 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. / he wanted me to give Tim the paper—he raved and stormed, and so I got frightened and ran away, for fear any of the keepers should come. Shouldn’t I have caught it !” ‘* And what did you do with the paper?” anxiously inquired the widow. “ Qh, Pve got it !” The child felt in her pocket, and, after tumbling out a variety of odds and ends—such as bits of silk for her doll’s dresses, needle-case, pin-cushion, an apple, and sundry other childish treasures—produced the leaf on which the old clerk had traced such odd-looking characters. © There it is,” she exclaimed, as she spread it out on the table before them; “ there’s writing! and poor Mr. Gridley, who used to set me such beautiful copies, and flourish so nicely a swan with his pen, why, he has not made a single letter—it’s all scratches and nonsense.” ) The two women examined the paper closely, and were convinced that the child was right: there was not a single letter, properly so called, in the, to them, unintelligible scrawl traced upon the paper. ‘ Well, now I am convinced,” said the widow; he must be mad—‘ such a nice man as he was; he used to make out my bills for my lodgers like copper-plate.” “T told you,” said the child, “ but you wouldn’t believe me ; if it had really been writing I should have shown it to you before.” ecomnuicloooks (SO