Her Faithful Knight — page 277: what you’re looking at

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

Aylmer’s Household. 273 Mrs. Read was a great stickler for etiquette. In her “set” at Croydon, a set chiefly composed of clerks’ and tradesmen’s wives, much punctiliousness was observed, and she began now to elaborately apologize for any lack of preparation for Mrs. Ransome’s visit. “We'd have had the new carpet down in the spare room if I’d had the least idea you were coming,” she explained to Dorothy. “If only Aylmer had telegraphed we might have made some sort of welcome. But I have been so upset by the fog and by Aylmer’s not coming home that it brought on one of my headaches. Did you ever suffer from headache?” “Hardly ever.” “Ah! then you can’t tell how I feel. Since my poor, dear husband’s death the least thing brings them on. It’s nerves, the doctor says. My nerves were shattered by the shock of my poor Stanley’s death. There you can sympathize with me, my dear, for you, too, have lost a good husband. You must feel terribly lonely.” “Sometimes I do,” Dorothy said. Tears started to her eyes. She was thinking of Phyllis, but Mrs. Read not unnaturally attributed this show of emotion to grief for the loss of the late Mr. Ransome, and was touched. “You are not like some young widows, I see,” she said approvingly. “I’ve known them go gadding about al- most before their husbands were buried. For my part I am old-fashioned, and I can’t understand widows marry- ing again. My heart is in the grave with my dear Stan- ley, and nothing could induce me to marry again.” She took out a black-edged pocket handkerchief as she spoke and wiped her eyes. She was quite in earnest and so utterly lacking in humor that it did not seem to her superfluous to assert that, being a plain and penniless COMMIEIOOKS (E(@) =|