The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

THE BRIDE ELECT. CHAPTER I. A STEP WITH ALEXANDER. At five o’clock, one July afternoon, a lark was soaring in upper air over the city of Edinburgh, and, poised on trem- ulous wings, its dun plumes fairly quivering with joy, it sang its loud, ecstatic pean as if it would sing its little heart out. It gazed with a bird’s brightest intelligence at the lovely map that lay beneath, where the kindly sun lit up the peaks of the Salisbury Craigs into spikes of gold, painted Arthur’s Seat into a gigantic emerald, and im- mured hoary Corstorphine into mild beauty, while the Pentland Hills crouched, lion-like, amid their blue mists © over the glittering city on its triple throne, and the Firth of Forth, dazzling as liquid silver, kissed Galina’s feet. It was west of Edinburgh, where stood a tall, old man- sion, planted amid turf and trees, and arabesques of flowers, and girdled by a quiet lane in front, a turbid canal at the rear. | Four young ladies were disposed in various attitudes of negligence or industry around a table, while a lady, old enough to insure respect and firm enough in expression to exact obedience, matroned the gay household. The dainty carpet of sweet sea tints and creamy lights, the fantastically Gomichooks (Eo)