Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

BONNY JEAN. 15 Jean glanced up, her face pale and set, and a strange, firm expression lighting her countenance. ‘“No, mother,” she said, calmly, ‘‘I cannot break my oath. Jean Conway has never broken her plighted word. Gabriel Black !”—she turned to the man with a scornful look, and her clear voice rang out in tones of defiance—‘‘ you are the most contemptible villain on the face of the earth, and I loathe you more than the vilest reptile in my path. Nevertheless, I have sworn, and 1 will keep my promise. I will go through the farce of a marriage ceremony whenever you see fit.” ‘* Jean,” gasped Mrs. Conway, ‘‘ wait.” ‘‘No,” replied the girl, firmly. ‘‘if the sacrifice is to be made at all, it may as well be made at once.” Perhaps the poor girl was urged on by the whip of scorpions embodied in the villain’s allegations regarding Philip Randall. At all events, her word was passed, there was no going back on it, and Jean knew it. Gabriel Black had played his cards well. The license was al- ready in his pocket. An illiterate preacher from the nearest village was sent for immediately, and then, much to the amaze- ment of the men in the camp, as well as their honest, kind- hearted wives, the announcement of the expected marriage was speedily made. They gathered from all quarters of the timber camp, and flocked around the open door of the cabin, where Jean stood beside her mother; the faces of the dead could be no whiter than these two; while in Jean’s eyes shone a lofty courage, an indomitable will not easily broken. And so, in the quiet of that fair May day, with the birds chanting the sweetest of anthems in the boughs of the great trees outside the cabins, and the smiling river dashing by mer- rily, while the golden sunlight lay in shining patches on the new-made grave under the live oak, the ceremony was per- formed. The poor girl made the requisite responses, and Ga- — briel Black and Jean Conway were pronounced husband and wife. When it was all over, and the last words of the ceremony Eomichooks (e(o) eo}