Vashti's Fate — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

68 SEED SOWN IN GOOD GROUND. the fire, with now and then an indifferent word, till the breakfast things were removed. The sitting-room, as Nora said, was pleasanter than the dining-room, being smaller, semi-circular in struc- ture, with one bay window, which commanded, when the weather was clear, a fine view through a parting in the trees. On the ruddy-tinted walls were several pictures, all gems in their way; but over the marble mantel was one that few ever looked at without pausing in rapt contem- plation before it. It represented a young and very handsome man. The face—a striking one—was evidently that of an Everleigh, with something of the look Frank had, and a great deal of that of Vashti. The lines about the mouth were inex- pressibly sweet and winning, but the eyes, which at the first glance you would have called merry, seemed, as they grew upon you, following you about the room, as pic- tured eyes do, to shine from depths—depths of sadness, of plaintive entreaty, it may be, but certainly of unutterable SOITOW. Leon gazed at it long, and his eyes falling from it, dwelt first upon the face of Frank, and wandered from that to Nora's. Her glance had followed his, and now, as it fell on her, she said: ‘It is the way papa looked before he and mamma were married, only not always so sad, All his friends objected to it because of that, and the artist retouched the eyes a great many times. But he only made them look more and more sorrowful, and the picture was so perfect other- wise that it was very much admired. I have heard that—” “Nora !” It was Frank who spoke, in accents which seemed to say, as he had said to Vashti: “, 2 . es ots ¢ RE is * ~ a oY 7 ri * ff f (<4 me i+ . + gt a aS