A Silver Brand — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

A SILVER BRAND. = pms tee * | brought out Serena’s humming-bird, and set Lina to fastening 1t upon the hat. : | She laughed merrily as she tried the effect... “Another item of resemblance, Serena. If, in- deed, as Aunt Theodosia seems to think, some great ss ” ogre is waiting in ambush to gobble me up,-he is quite likely to make a mistake and seize you. ‘Dark eyes and brown hair, a mark 6n the right wrist, and -ahumming-bird in the hat!’ If the ogre has only that description to go by, you’ll understand what it means if you are surreptitiously seized upon. Tell » them you’re the wrong humming-bird, and send them back for me.” : Nat did not join the chorus of their silvery laughter; he strode to the window and _ stood look- ing forth, his brow knit, his eye troubled and _ per- plexed. ! 7 “What mystery is this?” demanded his inward thought. “What strange, incomprehensible fate — has stamped that minute mark, line for line, dot for dot, upon another wrist? _The magnifying glass shows me the same coat of arms as Lina’s. One is as surely the stamp of that silver brand as the other. Great Heaven! what am I to think? Have [been mistaken? Are they all mistaken? Whata momentous issue hangs upon. the rightful solution of the question? I dare not move another step until it is answered.” He went back and stood by them while the two maidens prattled on, and broke in presently upon their light talk. . “Serena, you never told me much about yourself. The old lady you call grandmother—is she really and veritably your relative?” 2 “Really and truly!” replied Serena. “She was _ telling me, but a little time ago, the sad particulars of my birth. I, also, you know, belong to the fatherland. My father. was nearly killed by some terrible accident to a great church in the process of rebuilding; and my poor young mother was taken sick in the hospital where he died, and followed him, leaving a poor little babe alone in the world, but for the old grandmother’s care, Yes, indeed, CS) Eomicboo