Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 69 miss, I want to tell you my ideas of this here business; bend down, miss, please—do you remember an awful railway ac- cident that smashed the cars on the 29th of November?” I shook my head, while a cold chill ran through me at mention of that fateful day to me and mine. ‘‘ Well there was, miss, not far from the city; and I can’t help hoping poor Leander wasn’t on that train, a-coming home wounded and helpless to his sister, to be killed at the last. I haven’t said nothing about that to Lucy, of course; I wouldn’t; she’s got enough to drag her down, poor girl; but it worrits me. I want you to get Len Rosecraft hunted up when I’m taken off; for that girl’s not in a state to be left without kith or kin in the world, and him and me was all she had. I?ll tell you all I can about him, to guide you.” | Here he entered into the description of the man’s age, appearance, trade before he enlisted, and other details, all of which I carefully wrote down in my writing-case, to be laid before the society. ‘Then he designated a small box on the mantel-piece, which I placed before him. ‘‘ Look over the things in it,” he said, ‘‘and you'll find the letter; it’s addressed to Mrs. C. Harrison, and his pho- tograph is in the bottom of the box; a tall chap—yes, that’s him, just as he looked, eleven months ago, standing up as Lucy’s groomsman. Now, dear miss, if you'll take them two things away with you, and try to find Len, I’ll die easier ; it’s hard to have that poor little girl of mine all alone in the world, just when she should be looked after—oh, poor Luce!” | He turned his head away, and subdued the large tears be- fore he proceeded further. ‘‘She never had much hard work to do; she lived with her brother on his snug little farm a little out of Newark, and when I married her, it just turned out that I stole her away from comfort to sit down to starvation, for I was drafted off to the war, and three months after Len was drafted too, and the little farm was rented out, for Luce wouldn’t go back to it alone. But as I was telling you, he was mighty fond of Luce, so he sold the bit of land, and it was half of the money he was bringing home to her, which would have been something for my poor mite, when sick- ness came. It’s never come to hand, howsomever, and good, kind Leander is lost.” CORNUCG OOO S (©)