The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

THE BRIDE ELECT. 141 had known between her and Alexander stole upon him, he thought perhaps it might be well that it should be so, for she was loyal to the core. : ‘«¢ And what says girlie?” whispered the captain, support-— ing his poor crushed rose with gentle arms. | She raised her meek, suffering eyes to him for a moment, with a look which smote him cruelly. ‘“My sister has been very hard to us,” moaned Florice, ‘“‘and has showed us a strange distrust in avoiding our confidence as she has done, and this being the case, we should cease pursuing her until she comes to us of her own accord and explains her reasons, which I assure you she will do in spite of her apparent heartlessness, as soon as it 1s possible; but oh, Anthony, don’t ask us to close our hearts against her—remember she is always my beloved - sister, whatever her faults, and as long as I am in this family circle, her place must be kept for her at my side.” ‘* And what if Alexander dies?” spoke up Jessie, with knitted brows. “* Jessie, hush!” exclaimed Florice, raising her hand with sudden reprcof; ‘‘ you are too harsh and often seem to for- get that she is my sister. ‘This might never have happened 1 33 The words died on her lips; could she be so ungenerous as to sting her friend with a knowledge of the estrangement she had caused? ‘‘T implore you, Jessie,” she continued, more gently, ‘* to think more kindly of Glencora than you do. Alexander, who of us all has suffered the deepest anguish, still clings to her good faith toward him, unshaken; his whole being is enwrapped by a belief in her innocence, and you see how near he has been brought to the end by a doubt being cast upon her. Let him have his trust unbroken until he 1s strong enough to bear the trial, and erase those cold innuen- does, which, even in his terible prostration, have more than once flushed hisface with agony. We have all been wronged, | but you, Jessie, who suffer least, why should you blame - most ?” The girl turned abashed from Florice’s fiery regard, and averted her face from them all to look down the sunny ave- nue; and perhaps a foreboding remorse blanched the pink in those rounded cheeks, for she shivered and held the cur- tain back with a shaking hand. GEomichooks: co