Guy Earlscourt's Wife — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

86 Told in the Twitigrn: gentleman, who was neither rich nor genero’s, resolyo. « re tain meas jong as he could. And when the house dissolved, he took me with him to lis country-seat down 1: the heart of Staffordshire. I met her there. “It is over three years ago now, but in this hour, and to the last of my life, I will see her as plainly as IT saw her that first day, standing breast- high amid the waves of barley, her hands full of corn-tlowers and pepples, her white dress waving in the sweet summer wind, a golden gray sky over her head, and the rosy lght of the Juiy sunset in her face. She was onty sixteen, and home from school for a two-months’ vaeation, an orphan heiress, with a face like one of Raphael’s Madonnas, and heart—a heart as constant, and as true, as the rest of her sex. An orphan heiress, engaged from her tenth vear to a baronet, bound to marry him by her father’s deathbed injunction-— her very fortune depended on it—if she refused, that fortune went to endow and build a |Uspital and library. “T knew nothing of the engagement—it 13 doubtful whether it would have mattered much if I had; still I think now it would have Leen more honest on her part, if she liad told me. She didn’t‘care for her athanced husband, of course; he was much her senior-—she rather disliked him, indeed, in those early days. And she loved me!” He paused, the smoke from his cigar eurled upward, anid Rosanna’s lemon geraniums, and hid his pale face im the fad- we daylight. | “We fell in love with each other, after the most approved three-volume romance fashion, and there were clandestine meetings, and vows of eternal constanc v, under the moonlight arcades of the old court. Before a month had elapsed, we had made up our minds, and informed each other, we woul assuredly die if separated, and that separation was very near. | She was going to spend a fortnight with a bosom friend in : Seotland, before going back to sehool, and after that nothing remained but a broken heart and an early grave. My pocr Jittle girl! How pretty she looked in the gloaming, as she clung to my arm and implored me to save her. Salvation seemed very easy just then to me. She was going across Seotland; what was there to hinder mv following, and having — our marriage performed there. Private marriage was easy in . 4 Seotland—no license, no witness—a quiet ceremony some fine day, and lo! our happrhess was secured for life. She was a little frightened at first, at this high-handed propesal, but she consented soon. We said good-hy-—if any of the kouse- hold Suspected our secret, I think the composure with which @ we parted must effectually have deceived them. She went to a . Scotland. Three days after I received’a note from her. The § JOOKS.COM