José — page 247: what you’re looking at

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

240 JOSE. tive. She sought to accustom herself to the thought of the morrow, that she might be prepared to meet demurely the inevitable; she strove to see McGregor as he had appeared at their first meeting in the Hast without an attendant feeling of aversion; she re- called the scene in the court-yard to-day, the de- ference paid her by the rude men who already regarded her as their mistress—but in the midst of these heroic endeavors a feeling as of despair filled her heart, destroying every advantage that she had succeeded in gaining, until it seemed that she could never be happy again. And then with fevered brain she began carefully to inspect the circum- stances by which she was surrounded and to place them separately before her, hoping against hope to hit upon some safety-promising expedient by which to escape her doom; but like a frightful specter staring her in the face was the thought of her isolated position at the fort should she again re- fuse—without protection from the grossly insulted host and the grieved housekeeper, subjected to all manner of humiliations, whose character she had not even been able rightly to conceive as yet, and so far from improving her condition, leaving her without a hope of getting away even then. It was toward evening that Hattie announced herself at the door. Mary started: up out of her brooding thoughts, surprised as she noticed how late it was, and admitted the housekeeper. “Now my young mistress must take tea,” said the kind old woman, entering with a waiter covered with cups and toast; “after which you can retire. Shortly after midnight you are to start so as to enable you and your husband to be back in good season. Itis on account of the Indians, you know; Eomichooks co m