Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

150 REYNOLDS’ WORKS her the justice to declare that so far as female purity went, her conduct and that of her sisters was unimpeachable. ‘JT remained two whole days with the friendly Marshalls, and when I took my leave, it was with a promise that I would soon visit them again. Kate inquired into the con- dition of my funds, and offered me assistance from her purse, but I still possessed sufficient for my present requirements, and therefore refused her generous offer. From Dover I proceeded to Southampton, and made the best of my way > to the school, with a heart yearning to fold my brother in a loving embrace. On arriving at the well-known estab- lishment, I was at once admitted by Mr. Jennings himself, who had seen me pass by the window of the parlour where he was sitting. On beholding me, his countenance grew exceedingly mournful, and I apprehended that something had happened to poor Frank. He took me into his parlour, and there he bade me prepare myself for some afflicting intelligence. Heavens! what a shock did I now receive, — I who had come thither in the fervid hope of clasping my brother in my arms. Alas, I was informed that Frank was no more! For a few minutes I was overwhelmed with grief. Mr. Jennings sent for his wife, and with every ap- pearance of the most genuine sincerity did they administer consolation. J shed torrents of tears, for it seemed to me that the only being whom I had to love upon the face of the earth was snatched from me. “When the violence of my grief had somewhat subsided, I sought for particulars, observing that the event must have been sudden indeed, as it was only two months since I had received a letter from Frank. Mr. Jennings proceeded to inform me that a very few days after Frank had thus written to me, the gentleman (the nobleman he should have said) who originally put him at the school came and took him away. Jennings went on to inform me that Frank had been declining for some months past, and that if he had not mentioned it in his letters, it must have been through unwillingness to cause me affliction. He added that about three weeks after my brother had left the school, the gentle- man (still of course speaking of the nobleman) wrote to inform him that the poor youth was no more. [I did not for a moment suspect the truth of this story, — a story which was all the more abominable and wicked, inasmuch as at Gomicbooks. co