The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

THE BRIDE ELECT. 799 you but acted the spy upon its weakness, and clung to friends who should be friends no more to you, were you loyal and true to that name which you uphold? Are you so little a lass of spirit that you seek to patch up the broken web of the past, and to go back upon the bravery you showed, when first you left those obscure friends, and came to Strathmore? Shame upon your courage then! Out upon your weak heart! Id rather have had honest Lady Rosecleer, who flouts and flurs at her father’s people, and forsakes them for seven years, than Kilmeny Strathmore, who wears the honors, and betrays the givers in her heart!” She looked at his angry face—she met his indignant blue eyes, and a weary shadow crept over her countenance —sudden weakness seemed to quiver in the proud, curling - lips, and she snatched her eyes from his, brimming with passionate tears, to send them in a wild appeal over the frothing waves. ‘“Oh, Robin, Robin, Robin!” whispered my lady, low, ‘I would they had left one heart in cold Strathmore, for poor Kilmeny, and that heart should be thine!” ‘‘ How often has my lady written clandestinely to her Lowland friends?” demanded Robin Strathmore, hearing nothing but the wrathful throbbing of his own angry heart, and beginning to glower from side to side with glancing eyes, while his fierce heel fretted with sharp spurs the silky side of his starting steed. And then the white reins were dropped on the palfrey’s arching neck, and my lady’s little hands were clasped. to- gether on her knees in meek entreaty, while the fire in her unearthly eyes was quenched in slowly rolling tears. ‘*Robin, you do me wrong,” she said. ‘‘ Do you remem- ber the letter you sent for me with your own hand?” | He bowed a grave acquiescence, and an (uneasy cloud troubled his brow. ‘‘That was my first letter, and my last,” shesaid. ‘‘ Kil- meny, of Strathmore, warped and strange as her path is spread before her by the stony-hearted arbiter of her life, is incapable of deceiving one soul who ever trusted her. You trusted to my honor, Cousin Robin, and I kept your trust. Your father, the laird, trusts nothing to me but the inside of my prison walls, and the jailer who would lead me in custody to view my possessions, and I care little how I (E(0) Gomichooks