Vashti's Fate — page 203: what you’re looking at

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

ad - —~ - <2 * 4 » a m she ‘ 3 “y . * ¢# ” ‘ 4% * » 198 DREAD. certainly be what you consider worse. As Percy Das- comb’s wife, your mother bade me tell you, you should never darken her doors.” ‘Be it so,” was the haughty answer. ‘‘ Meanwhile, good people, let us pass, for our business is of great mo- ‘ ment. ” a ‘‘T thought you considered yourself to have an inalien- - able right to marry when, where, and whom you choose. =f I thought you were one of those who would never skulk from the face of day,” Margery said, with bitter sarcasm. ‘‘Neither would I, only to save mamma from the scene a your officiousness would force upon her if I married, as I “a certainly have a right to do, at home.” — - ‘Very filial you are suddenly! Do you not suppose 4 there will be quite as dreadful a scene, when she learns what has happened ?” ‘‘ Suffer us to pass, if you please,”’ said Vashti. ‘*Stand still, Philip and Elise. Vashti, your bonny cava- lier is an arrant coward as ever I saw. If it depends on his personal efforts to carry you off, you'll never get away. But they say people always marry their opposites.” Percy Dascomb was just as mean-spirited and cowardly — as Margery pronounced him ; but as Vashti looked athim in haughty expectation of something to refute this stinging taunt of Margery’s, and as, after all, two women and one old man were not very formidable, he took a brisk pace or two toward them, saying : ‘‘T’m just coward enough, Miss Margery, to shrink from | a contest with women; but if this lady on my arm com- . mands me to force a passage, I consider myself bound t te 3 obey her behest.” ae ‘‘Philip, you ought to have muscle enough to pitch him over the fence. He can’t be very heavy. I’m sure I have