The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

THE BRIDE ELECT. 143 fortable legacy of a farm and house in Cornwall which had been left her by an English cousin. This legacy had caused her to depart very suddenly, just the evening before Mr. Wynde had strolled out to Lady-Bank to honor the lady’s- maid with a special call, which was unfortunate, for the tortuously inclined gentleman seemed grievously disap- pointed at being too late at least to bid her good-by. The sweet-toned bells of every church and chapel were pealing forth their gracious invitation, when Florice and Anthony Drummond, haying walked rapidly down to the city, entered the first house of prayer in thei way, and sank with the dying chimes to offer brief homage to their great High Priest. There were ladders of tinted sunshine streaming across chancel and aisle from the oriel windows, and the great organ pealed a seraphic Handel chorus. Then a gentle hush. a rustle and sigh, as the immense multitude knelt and the service began. At first Florice devoted herself strictly to her devotions, joining reverently and softly in the murmuring response, and not until the sermon had commenced did her eye wan- der from the little blue velvet prayer-book, and the cap- tain’s brown hand holding it for her. Captain Drummond was sitting, certainly it must be confessed, in a very quiescent mood, but quite conscious yet, and listening with much edification to his simple soul, and agreeing in his innocent heart to every word uttered by the bland clergyman, when he was all at once trans- ported from the vague, indistinct field of the abstract to the startling, ever thrilling turmoil of the present. A hand came down like a steel-trap upon his own, cold, vibrating, convulsive in its grief; a face wild, white, and insignificant, looked up into his, and two straightly leveled eyes still streamed forth their intense gaze beyond him into the middle aisle of the building. ‘‘ Heavens, Florice! What—what?” The captain could gaze no more. ‘T'wo or three turned round their heads to look at him, and he was fain to keep silence, for he was one of your men who did not know how to whisper, but seeing that she seemed deaf to his question — he followed the direction of her eyes, hoping to find the solution of her startling expression. Eomichooks. co