A Silver Brand — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

A SILVER BRAND. CHAPTER I. “tT WILL NOT DESPAIR.” The broad Bavarian sunshine fell warmly upon a woman wandering slowly amid tiny beds of blos- suming plants. Now she stooped close to some fra- grant heart in the midst of a dainty crown of petals, and handled it with tender and loving fingers, as though almost she believed an answering soul lin- gered there, and anon she carefully removed an in- sect, or dead leaf, or atom of earth from the thrifty branches of the shrubs about her. But oftenest she stopped abruptly, and folding her arms, lifted up: her pale, sad face to the smiling sky, asking mutely, it would seem, for some miraculous visitation. The garden was peculiar, as its mistress was striking in appearance. Not an ordinary flower- bed, lotted off from a verdant lawn, or sloping bank, or broad field, but a garden up in mid-air, on the top of a high and solitary building, to whose flat roof soil had been transported, and plants set out. A strong iron railing, higher than the tallest person’s head walled about this novel garden, over whose wicker-work vines were trailing in rich, lux- uriant masses. A tiny fountain played in the center bed, and near by a little arbor, thickly screened by climbing roses, held its inviting rustic seat, At the Comichoo 5) (EC)