Gratia's Trials — page 219: what you’re looking at

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

210 oe TIAS TRIALS. the on a pearls you have clasped so often on my neck and wrists. ° She laid the blue velvet case in Gratia’s lap, with the great gleaming pearls lying coiled up within, like links of frozen tears. ‘‘Of course I could bring a newer and more stylish set here,” she said, ‘‘ but these are the Melworth pearls, with a history attached to each gem, and I thought you would like them bet- ter because I had worn them.” And the light in Gratia’s soft, uplifted eyes told her that she was right. The presents were showered in abundantly as the time of the wedding drew near, for Colonel Falconer was a personage of too much importance in metropolitan society for any neglect to be shown to the girl whom he had chosen to be his wife. CHAPTER XXXIX., ‘* MARRIED AT GRACE CHURCH.” The Widow Kempfield, formerly our old friend Miss Almira Bassett, was in New York making a short visit to her friend, Mrs. Keturah Peabody, who kept a millinery store on Eighth avenue. ‘‘There’s nothing particular for me to do, now that I’ve let the farm on shares,’ said Mrs. Kempfield, with whom it might be supposed that sorrow agreed, she looked so fat and oily and blooming in her rustling black gown and widow's cap. ‘‘ Poor, dear Ira has left me everything he had in the world, and I don't need to trouble myself pecuniarily.” ‘‘'To be sure,” said Mrs. Peabody, whose own better half had died without leaving anything, because of the simple fact that he had nothing to leave. ‘‘ And now you're here, Almira, you can lend me a hand with Rebecca’s wedding things.” comicbooks-co