Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. Excerpt: ... OTTILIE HARVEY CLEARS UP A PAINFUL SITUATION. When Russell Bainbridge returned to town, he hastened with all dispatch to the Harvey mansion. A curious sight met his gaze at the threshold. An old, old man, in a dressing-robe, was being supported in a slow promenade up and down the hall. A stalwart attendant upheld him by each shoulder. At one side walked Ottilie, holding a book and bunch of keys; at the other, her cousin Selkirk. To this complexion had Rodman Harvey come at last. He was borne along like some strange fetich. His feet swung in and out mechanically and dropped upon the pavement with a dull thud. There was no virtue in his splendid surroundings, no magic in the memory of the sway that had once been his, to break the benumbing spell upon his faculties. His eyes alone lived, jewels embedded in a strange, unwieldy setting. He recognized Bainbridge, and a faint mumbling escaped his lips, Ottilie bent to catch it, with the ear of a ready sympathy. Bainbridge remarked with a pang how strongly she showed the trace of her anxieties. "Uncle Rodman says, 'How do you do?'" she said. "He will shake hands with you." There was something very sweet in this. It was as if she were interpreting the lisping accents of a child. Bainbridge, with a certain awe, took three palsied fingers of his patron's hand in his own. Tears started from the eyes of the merchant prince, and dribbled down his cheeks. They were sedulously wiped away by his attendants. "Why was he so affected at sight of me?" asked Bainbridge, when this interview had ended, and he was enabled to withdraw with Ottilie into one of the reception-rooms adjoining. "I do not think he was unusually so," she explained. "He remembers you, and that alone suffices to excite him. He has no...
