Thrice Lost, Thrice Won — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

She ae), ads We t. - Carlotta’s s Warning. 7 57 a a < The date was three years before Estella was born. The - faded scrawl flashed upon her now -like a burst of sudden light.. y “Why not go there,” she thought, “to my mother’s siateges - to my aunt? She is still alive——still 3 in the same place—the eld homestead. Mr. Fisher told me so to-night, and that he - ‘was going to write to her of my marriage. Tor my mother’ gS -gake—the sister she loved—she will surely befriend me.” Her eyes lighted, her cheeks flushed. New hope kindled in her hopeless heart. What did it matter, in that instant, - that she was penniless—that she knew about as much the way to Chelsea as to Copenhagen ! Hopeful sixteen saw light and liberty at last. She hid the precious volume in hing boddth with her cross and chain, and went to work upon her ladder of ropes. _ In a quarter of an hour the sheets, strong and coarse in material, were torn in strips, knotted firmly together, fas- tened within to a strong hook in the wall, and flung out of the - window to the ground. All was now complete. She took no bundle—she. would % hamper herself with nothing that could obstruct her flight. She paused, pale and breathless, a moment to _ listen. Sen Pistcwiaics she could’ hear the tramping of feet, the hurry- ing to and fro; upstairs she could hear the noisy scampering ss the rats. She clasped her hands, and looked at the star-gemmed sky. “Save me, O Lord!” she prayed. “Help a helpless orphan. : girl escaping from her foes!” _ __ With an earnest, half-breathed prayer, she made her way | 2) through the window and laid hold of her rope. If it should break! But her weight was light—the resist- ance was little. She was on the ground almost in an instant fe re She turned and fled, running breathlessly. headlong, over ba va oe 2 é “ ip - fields and marshes. She reached the high-road; she turned ~ : her. face resolutely from Rockledge, in the opposite direction. “Brooklyn is but seventy miles off,’ she thought. “The A frst step to Chelsea-is to reach Brooklyn. Good-by, dear Say Dick! We may never meet again.” ‘ 533 ~ some marshes, at the long, low, gloomy old house where she cP nad~ suffered so much—at the darker Raven, lying, like a ae. ge bird of ill-omen as it was, in its sheltered cove—at he a: istant. lights of Rockledge, twinkling like nye stars—and | the on off and away like the wind. | One brief, backward glance at the wide sea, at the lone-: C7) .OOKS (E(@) mM : ~ “wy Oe ay " . ’ Jex a aad fm : ' _* ¢ ‘ " ] Aut a mae? Sart Nea ‘