Vashti's Fate — page 270: what you’re looking at

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

BANKRUPT, BODF AND SOUL, 265 count for by calling the carriage ‘‘a close, musty affair,” and moaning in spite of himself with some inward mental or physical pain that beaded his white forehead with an- guished moisture. Fortunately the carriage was easy as it was possible for anything on wheels to be, and the weather—the middle of June—fine, rather cool for the time of year, the roads smooth and not dusty. Frank’s first demand, on being assisted to the house, whither he would walk, was for Doctor Gracie. These foreign doctors didn’t know anything, they had half killed him with their stuff now. He gasped for breath as he spoke, and was interrupted by a feeble cough that yet seemed to exhaust his little strength. They had taken him, at his request, to the ruddy-tinted sitting-room ; and as he sat in the easy-chair that had been his mother’s, with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and the red glow of the room on his transparent face, he looked like one dead. Vashti, seeming suddenly to have grown weak and nervous, could not endure the sight, and shrank from the room with an expression very nearly re- sembling fright in her startled eyes. Margery Gresham, with quite as painful an emotion visible upon her stern face, yet hovered around ; and Nora, having hastily doffed her traveling gear, waited near, ready, with her pure eyes and peaceful face, to render any service that might be needed, and which the others seemed quite unfitted for. Opening his eyes after a little, they chanced to meet the mournful gaze of that pictured face above the mantel-piece. He struggled as in the grasp of some painful memory, say- ing, pitifully : “Take it away! oh, take it away !” CO m Eomicboo