José — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

JOSE. 113 the mountains, on one side, to the point where the plain terminated in a towering forest, on the other, no living object appeared to gladden the view. The voiceless silence and inanimate condition of the desert seemed to have extended its influence, too, over this oasis. With a deep, audible sigh, the young lady re- turned to the first room, crossed and re-crossed repeatedly in a deep study, and then, as if by a superior effort, began to unpack her trunk. A soft knock interrupted her, and as the door opened it disclosed the wrinkled face of the old housekeeper. “T came merely to give you a light, in case you wish to be left alone to-night,” she said; “and to ask if I may not serve you with something to strengthen and refresh you. IJ’ll wager you haven’t had a square meal for a long time.” “Come in,” said the young lady, who now for the first time remarked the expression of motherly benevolence on the old lady’s face. The housekeeper entered, with a slight nod of the head and with a degree of alacrity as if she had only been waiting for an invitation, deposited hr candlesticks on the shelf over the grate, and then assumed an attitude as if waiting to be addressed. “Be seated, I pray you—you are the housekeeper, I suppose?” began the former, slowly resuming her seat in the arm-chair. 3 “Hattie—your servant, ma’am,” answered the other, taking a chair with a perceptible manifesta- tion of pleasure, “I raised the young master after his mother’s death, and shared the family’s joys and sorrows, and came out here with them among GEomichboo cS (E(o)