Octavia's Pride; or, The Missing Witness — page 243: what you’re looking at

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

OCTAVIA’S PRIDE. © 233 keys in her hand, and waited until the lodgers of that floor had descended. She did not feel herself a thief ér a med- dler when she tried first one and then the other, and she was prompt to say, when the chambermaid came around the corner, with a pack of towels on her arm: ““Tf you please, can you unlock the door for me? I have got the wrong key, and I’ve come back for a handker- chief.” ) Unsuspecting, the girl took her own key and opened the door. Jane’s alert eye searched the room, while a prayer that the object of her search might be there was in her heart. tes She walked straight to the red silk handkerchief bundle lying on the bed, opened it hastily, closed it again, and walked out. ‘l‘he chambermaid deposited her fresh towel, re-locked the door, and went her way. Mathew: Merle, after his hearty dinner, came back and sat down a little while fora nap. Then he wrote a letter making an appointment with the Karl of Chichester. After which he went out into the street, bought a small leather case, such as could be thrust into his inner pocket, and re- turning, he opened the bundle tied in the red silk handker- chief, took out carefully the book of red morocco with the gilt clasps and the yellow packet of papers, and fitted them into the case, and put the case into a pocket made inside his woolen shirt. | ““One may as well be cautious,” he said. ‘‘ A valuable _ packet like that might be easily taken from me, and there’s plenty as are willing to go to any lengths for it.” And having thus, figuratively speaking, securely lobed the stable door, Mathew Merle walked down to the office of the underwriters, and watched impatiently the signals there announcing the approach of inward-bound vessels. The Comet was still unheralded, but he saw one of the owners there, who informed him that she was sure to be in Gomicboo ‘S' tee - 4 2 ' [| fl WS the are