Guy Earlscourt's Wife — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER V1. Sak DAWN OF THE FOURTEENTH OF AFRE.. li wos the thirteenth of April, and late in the afternoon, Sunshine flooded the quiet streets of Bloomsbury, and the windows of Half-Moon Terrace, happening to face westward, were ail aflame with the golden light of the sky, a sky as blue as though Half-Moon Terrace were in Venice instead of the parish of Bloomsbury, London. It was an are of dreary brick boxes, and had only one side of the way, the other being mews. And in the particular brick bex where Mr. Duke Mason had set up his household gods, he had a chimney-sweep for neighbor in the attic, and a lame cob- bler, who kept a shop on the first floor. Mr. Mason’s domicile consisted of four diminutive rooms, a kitchen, with a bed- room off.for his sister and housekeeper, a-parlor, with ditto for himself, and a dreary, unplastered apartment, also open- ing off the parlor, which sérved him as a studio; for Duke wis an artist, as you have been told—scenic artist, his little sign over the door informed you—assistant scene-painter to the Royal Waterloo Britannia. He was also second violinist, he likewise went on, and played a witch in Macbeth, Second Cirave-Digger, ete., and such powerful casts. Being an adept in the French language, he, moreover, adapted the plays of that nation, diluting them with insular virtue, and straining the Freneh morality a good deal, in order to suit British stomachs. He also painted portraits when he got them to paint, so that you perecive Mr. Mason was a gentleman of brilliant parts and great versatility of talent. He stands in his painting-room this sunny April afternoon, hard at work on a huge square that occunies all one side of the room, and he is standing on a ladder, putting in skies and backgrounds. Close, it looks one huge chaos of rubies and purples, and ultramarine and gold leaf—from the door- way it looks like a grotto set in golden sands, and in a strong lime light will, no doubt, come out in dazzling splendor to the eyes of the frequenters of the Britannia. In the parlor adjoining, the shabbiest and most spotlessly neat of parlors, sits sewing Miss Rosanna Mason. She is a lady of that age which is delicately mentioned as uncertain: she is fifteen years the Duke’s senior, and: Duke is five-and- twenty. She is tall and spare, as ziaiden ladies usually are; she has high cheek bones, and thin lips, and deep-set eyes, and a Roman nose, and a tremendous frontal development; a“ comicbooks.com