Lady Evelyn — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

— i oe. 20 _ Weaving the Web. a prize as this Spanish princess for a wife, there was no eminence in the kingdom but he, with his shrewd brain and crafty cleverness, might not attain. He had hated and envied his cousin long, with a bitter and terrible envy, all the more deadly from being so close- | ly hidden; but he had never in his whole life before hated him so vindictively as he did to-night. They were but a little way before him, these two, match- less in their beauty, in their bright and gracious youth and > love. Gerald Desmond set his strong white teeth, and > ground out a terrible oath. | : “I have hated you in secret for many a year, you shallow- brained, mad-headed fool!” he said, with a gleam of devil- ish malignity in his light eyes; “the time has come to act now. Weo your black-eyed bride—win her if you can. If you ever lead her to the altar, if you ever’slip the wed- ding-circlet on her finger, then ‘write me down an ass!’ [ love Inez d’Alvarez, and mine she shall be—muine! I have said it, and we Desmonds keep our word. When _ her weddine-day comes, unlikely as it looks now, / will stand at the altar by her side, and you will be—where, Lord Roderick ?”’ ‘ CHAPTER: ITI. WEAVING THE WEB. She stood by the window, looking out over the illimita- ble sea, a picture of rare loveliness—stately and tall, slen- der and willowly, graceful and high-bred, the dainty head held proudly aloft, and the rich masses of blue-black hair falling i1 a shining, glossy cascade over the sloping white shoulders down to the lithe waist. A low brow; a com- _ plexion of the dead, creamy whiteness of ivory; a curved red mouth, haughty and sweet at once, and two wonderful Castilian eyes, long, black, and bright as stars. She was dressed in deepest mourning, trailing far behind her over the oaken floor: her sole ornaments a sparkling cross of diamonds on her breast, and a circlet of red gold clasping back of her beautiful, abundant hair. ___. She stood alone in the long, low, old-fashioned drawing- _ room, the first of a lengthy suite—alone by the open win- _ dow, framed, like some exquisite picture by Grezzre er. - cP eae y* es ae be ' nw, Lee. Nee 2 > - *) e oS Ame es ’ all