Thrice Wedded, but Only Once a Wife — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

94 THRICE WEDDED. “Bless you, auntie!” exclaimed Dora, giving her a little hug, ‘‘you make me very happy by saying so.” “Perhaps,” prise that he could not believe it at first, and if you had looked at him again you might have come away with a hap- pier heart.” oe Sees Truly she was a “‘shrewd one at guessing,” for she could not know how nearly the truth she came! “Do you really think so?” asked Dora, eagerly, the bright look coming again to her eyes. “T° hope that may be the truth of it,” replied her aunt, thoughtfully. ‘But if it should not—nay, darling, try to look at it bravely,” she added, as Dora shuddered, and ut- tered a little moan. ‘‘If you should discever that, during the lorg years of hard study, his heart should have forgotten its allegiance to the little girl whom he married upon the impulse of a moment—or if, perchance, some German beauty has usurped your place, I know it would be hard, but it is best to look at the matter calmly—would you—could you desire to force yourself upon him as his wife?” ‘Never! JI would let my heart break—I would die first!” exclaimed Dora, with glittering eyes and heaving bosom. “But, oh!” she added, a moment after, with quivering lips, ‘‘T cannot believe anything so dreadful of Robbie. I feel that he zs true. I could almost say I knowheis.” ‘“‘Ah?’ replied Madame Alroyd, smiling at her returning trust, and patting her tenderly upon the cheek. resumed madam, ‘‘he was so taken by sur-— ‘““Ah, could he see you now, your faith alone would win - him. We will hope the best of your hero, and try to wait with patience his coming. And so my pet could not trust the old woman with her secret?” ‘“No, it was not I could not trust you. I could not bear to have my love made light of.” ss “Ah, you did not know that this old and withered heart was once as trusting and fresh as your own. But we will not talk of that now,” she said, with a sigh; then added, softly, ‘‘“My own darling, I love you too dearly to ever make light of anything which you consider sacred; so don’t ever shut me out in the cold again.” Dora threw her arms around her aunt’s neck, and said, while she rained kisses upon her wrinkled face: | “You are the best and dearest auntie in the whole world, and I love you—almost as well as I do somebody else,” “comicbooks.co