A Silver Brand — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

92 ge oiees A SILVER BRAND, she is my reJative! The same blood flows in our veins! How bitterly she wept while she told me how her dying daughter begged her to be gentle and tender with the orphaned babe! She was the first, she says, to kiss me, and her own trembling hands held my tiny face to the pale, dying lips. My poor young mother! My dear old grandmother!” And Serena wiped away the bright drops that beaded the silken eyelash, and looked up into Nat’s face for sympathy. | -. “JT must go to see her, Serena,” said he, promptly ; “it is a shame that I know nothing about her except that your faithful service at school-teaching con- tributes to her support.” -“T wish you would,” returned Serena, eagerly; “she has so few friends in this country that I fear it will never seem like home to her. Sometimes, she says, even my ways strike her as strange and foreign.” “There is Auntie Pen, do you see her hurry?” ex- claimed Lina. “Oh, dear! I can’t go back to that dismal chamber. Old Nat, help me coax her into leaving me in peace while Serena stays.” Penelope knocked at the door, and Nat opened it. “IT want my niece, sir,” she said, coldly; “it is very annoying to us that she has taken such fond- ness for this place.” “Tam sorry, madam,” returned the taxidermist, courteously, “since I enjoy her visits exceedingly, and surely there is naught harmful about them.” Lina put her bright face over his shoulder. “You needn’t be uncivil to Nat, Auntie Pen. If there is any fault in the matter, it is mine, or some- body’s who locked my door. I saw Serena’s boat land, and I wanted to see her.” “Serena?” repeated Penelope; “I have heard you speak of-her before; it is the girl friend you made down at the beach.” “Yes, my darling friend and comforter. Let me take her with me, and I will go back contentedly,” pleaded Lina. : Penelope took a step inward, and her eye fell _ upon the figure within, without taking in the face, comicbooks: com.