Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 371: what you’re looking at

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

304 REYNOLDS’ WORKS not all the circumstances attending it. You knew not that I wasa father. Such, however, was the case. I cannot now enter into particulars; those shall be given when we meet, which I hope will be soon. “My object in penning these few lines is to inform you that my beloved son, Francis Paton, 1s at the present time in Lincolnshire. He is to be found at the principal hotel at Gainsborough. It is possible —if circumstances cause him to prolong his stay there — that he may need the counsel of one who, through friendship for his father, will advise him kindly and conscientiously. Is it, therefore, asking you too much to seek him at that hotel? Show him this letter, and he will confide to you the object of his: visit into Lincolnshire. But forget not, my dear friend, that for the present I do not wish it to be known that I am in Eng- land. ** Yours most sincerely, “ WAGLEDEAN.” Mr. Denison read this letter with feelings of mingled astonishment and gratification, — astonishment that the youth whom accident had brought to his house should be the son of his oldest and most valued friend, and gratification to think that he should thus have already been enabled to show him some little attention, even before knowing who he was. But Mr. Denison was a discreet man, and he deter- mined therefore to observe inviolably the secret which had just come to his knowledge. Putting the letter in his pocket, he at once passed into the saloon, and advancing straight up to Francis Paton, began to converse with him in the kindest and most friendly manner. Mr. Hawkshaw, perceiving that Frank was thus the object of special atten- tion on the part of the host, did not now scruple to leave him for a few minutes while he proceeded to pay his respects to Lady Saxondale and Juliana. Mr. Denison then took Frank’s arm, and gently leading him away into the ball- room, still continued to converse in the most aifable manner, though upon general and indifferent topics. They passed through the ballroom, traversed a smaller apartment, and then entered a conservatory filled with evergreens, orange-trees, rare plants from the tropics, and a variety of choice flowers. This place was lighted with wax candles, Gomichbooks (E(0)