Witch Hazel; or, The Secret of the Locket — page 374: what you’re looking at

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

she took her hand and drew her toward her, and studied her features, with eager, hnnugry eyes: “it seems as if it nust be true, Has Mrs. Earlescourt saved anything that you wore at that time?” “Yes, my clothing and a little ring, which she took from ny tinger, bearing the initials ‘F. to M,’’’ Marie answered. Mrs. Stewart threw her arms around her. “There can be no doubt now!” she said, “That little ring was given to you by a cousin, about your own age, in Chicayo, and on your birthday, which oc- eurred during our yisit there.” She could say no more, but burstinto a passion of weeping that almost convulsed her. Her thoughts rapidly reviewed all the past—the sorrow of her early life, when death had deprived her of a fond husband and left her with three little chil- dren to rear; when, broken in health by grief, she bad gone to that vreat city of the West for rest and change, only to be wet. by another terrible aMliction in the loss of her little child, who, she believed, had died a fearful death in the never-to-be-forgotten scene of destruction from which she had barely escaped herself. The memory of all this, fogether. with the excite- mentand revelations of the morning, served to un- nerve her completely, while she could not fail to realize, if Marie were indeed the little daughter whom she had so long believed dead, what a poor return she had made the woman who had resened and so tenderly cared for her; who had given her every ad- vantage that money could procure, and by care, and patience, and love, succeeded in developing a noble and beautiful character from the very taulty little girl whom she remembered. She was_conscience- smitten and humiliated when she contrat REP ents