Octavia's Pride; or, The Missing Witness — page 237: what you’re looking at

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

‘4 ’ ) ods 2 ha ; wed eg aE: Vai: © mes Pe feo vant ia ¥r Mh Mi Waa sill hac | tie WES ua oh ee , ‘@ : ~ af “a ) ¢ sia > — } OCTAVIA’S PRIDE. 227 filling the fancy soap-box into which they had been thrust as fast as they had arrived. «Bless your eyes! here they are, every letter, and no- body’s touched ’em, beyond the putting them in this nice clean place,” said the burly host, taking out his pipe, and starmg in the dark, wrinkled face of the old East Indian, “T allers told “em you'd turn up in the right time, and sure enough here you are. ‘l’here’s a policeman was down twice to know about you. Something to do with a drowned gal, Mother Woodstock knows about. it. They’ve saved the clothes, you see. Your niece, wasn’t it? Well, poor soul! her troubles are ended.” «< My niece?’ exclaimed Mathew, his black eyes snapping _ over the letters, the latest of which he had torn open eagerly. “What about my niece?” » «“Why, she was missing, and you went off to search for her, didn’t you? And they found her drown—ded. You haven’t heard about it, I s’pose.” “Found my niece drowned?” repeated Mathew Merle. ““When? how? ‘This week, or last?” “Bless your soul, no. But months ago. And there’s the clothes down at the station house now. Mother Woodstock identified them, and it’s all recorded there about her death. They brought it to suicide, I believe. But it’s down, you can read it. Mina Merle, niece of Mathew Merle, lately ar- rived from India, identified by the boarding mistress—and all that.” “<The devil!” ejaculated Mathew Merle, laying down even the precious letters of his son, and staring fiercely into the speaker’s face. ‘‘ Who’sat the bottom of this plot I should like to know?” The man’s face showed his bewilderment. And ina mo- ment more Mathew regained his shrewd self-possession. ‘Well, well, [ll look into it,” said he, carelessly, “ but comicboo “S col