A Struggle for a Ring — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

132 THE SPELL WORKS. ‘‘How happy your sister looks,” said Lady Ethel to Lord Carsdale. ‘‘If every bride looked as happy and as smiling, I should say it spoke well for marriage.” ‘‘She is happy, Lady Ethel; and why should she not be?” The dark, beautiful eyes, with their proud light, rested half sadly for one moment on his face; then, smiling at him, she answered : ‘*T have not seen very much of the gay world, yet Iam longing for it—I love it with all my heart; but I have seen four weddings, and at three of them the brides looked most miserable, and everybody said what excellent matches they were. At the fourth the bride looked very happy, and all her friends very sad; they said she was throwing herself away. She was marrying a handsome, noble, generous young colonel, who seemed to worship the very ground she trod upon. So that you see my ideas of marriage are slightly unsettled.” ‘‘T am glad that you think my sister looks happy,” he said. ‘«She could not help it; she is marrying a duke, and a very nice duke he seems to be.” | ‘‘He is,” said Lord Carsdale, ‘‘quite as nice as he looks.” She glanced at his grace of Claverdon with keen atten- tion. ‘‘His face is a trifle too square,” she said, ‘‘and I do not like the color of his hair.” ‘*-You are difficult to please, Lady Ethel,” he said. ‘‘Not in a friend,” she replied; ‘‘a husband is quite a different matter—to have the same face always before one, it should be a handsome one.” ‘‘You like handsome men, Lady Ethel?” he said, feel- ‘a comicbooks.c¢