A Silver Brand — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

abe A SILVER BRAND. 73 little, fairy creature. Ido, indeed I do, Nat, and I thank you so much for it. But I must associate myself with it; you must allow that, for the fancy has come, and I can’t put it away. I think lam something of the sort. I can mate my experience to my imaginings of his. I think of myself, taken ~ away from the home-nest too early to know any more than dim intuitions tell me, yet ever yearning vaguely for what was there. Nat, you are always calling me odd little names, now you must leave. them all for one. Call me humming-bird, Nat.” “A lovely little humming-bird, certainly,” re- turned Nat, smilingly; “but with that pensive face hardly like the gay little jewel who flies so airily. Don’t look so grave, birdling.” Neither of them saw that Penelope’s eyes had darted toward them, flashing with a new intelli- gence. Neither noticed how her fingers clenched themselves upon the book she held. Lina tossed back her drooping tresses, and laughed, as she crowned them with her hat. “There, now you see, Lam crowned, and chris- tened at once. Your Humming-bird, Mr. Nat. And I can be as gay as you like. Goto work on ‘the other, and tell me if that has a history, too.” “No, indeed, no more histories,” he returned, but took up the feathered skin, and resumed his work. “I’m getting this ready that my other little visitor may not feel herself slighted.” “And you have given me the most beautiful bird. It proves that lam right. The rarest should have been Serena’s, only for the little foreigner’s history, which made you see that he belonged to me by right. Oh, Nat, how I wished you were as wise in prpohecy as in other things. You should tell me my fortune, and explain everything that puzzles me.” - 2 “No,” returned he, gravely, “I do not think I should.” eer She faced him with a sudden glint of indignation in her eye. a “What, you—you too, would keep me in blindness and ignorance? Have you found out anything Gomilechboo s) con