The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

GS THE BRIDE ELECT. elegant lounges, and the richly clothed tables, were each heaped with the snowy waves of lace, lawn, and muslin that comprised the work of the merry group. A robe of filmy tulle lay huddled on the piano, wreaths of crisp crape and shimmering lace garlanded the harp, a chaplet of orange- blossoms in a nest of sheer white satin reposed on a fati velvet foot cushion. | But there was one who stood apart, her back to the bridal array, her tender, dreamy face looking out into the sweet summer. A stately creature—tall, well-poised, grace- ful, with changeful depths in her dark eyes, and flashing tides on her rich cheek, with a lovesome mouth, though resolute, and a nose that Lady Jane Grey, or, better still, a Charlotte Corday, might have had—straight, patient, heroic, with the faintest possible chiseling off the point, as one might correct by one delicate touch to the too perfect nose of a statue. She leaned against the casement, one foot on the low sill, her brow pressing the cold pane, her hands loosely linked and hanging with careless grace at one side. She was not hearing her merry bride-maids as they sewed and chatted, and she was not seeing the lovely view without, as the trees whispered, and the flower-petals sailed on the summer air; yet her soul was filled with the cheer of perfect happiness, and the earth seemed very fair to her. A little maiden rose from her place, crying to her com- panions, with an arch glance: ““See, Madge, Jessie, Marian, now we have finished the vail, let us try the effect. I shall personate the bride, you shall vail me—gracefully—so!” She was roguishly regarding her own reflections in the opposite mirror, through a mist of sheeny tulle, when the elder lady turned her head, caught sight of the pretty mimic, and cried, hastily: ) ) ‘Florice—Florice! put the vail off! What are you comichooks (E(9)