Weaker than a Woman — page 218: what you’re looking at

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

WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. 909 “You will give us this one evening, Mr. Lonsdale, ” said Sir Owen. “Enjoy yourself a little before you begin to work.” | It was a matter of perfect indifference to him. If he had consulted his own inclination he would have ‘preferred to begin work at once, but he could hardly be impolite enough tO say SO. — Sir Owen liked to sleep after he had dined. Felix de- clined to take wine, and the baronet, thinking in his heart that the young lawyer was a simpleton for it, went into the drawing-room with him, and then fell asleep. Before he closed his eyes he said : “Lady Chevenix, Mr. Lonsdale will like to see the erounds, | am sure. You and Miss Hethcote will both enjoy a stroll.” He never once thought that he was submitting his young wife to a most deadly peril—the peril of a great tempta- tion. He never thought of Felix Lonsdale as of one who had been his wife’s lover. He had been engaged to her— that was a well-known fact; but, so soon as he, the vic- torious knight, had appeared, he had retired from the con- test defeated, and there was an end of it all. He con- sidered that he had raised his wife so completely above all her past life, that he had taken her so completely out of her old sphere, that nothing which had interested her then could interest her now—he never pondered the fact that Felix Lonsdale, the rising lawyer, the man of promise, the most clever and skillful practitioner in the county, was his wife’s old lover. So he lay down in perfect content while he sent his young wife out into the lovely summer gioaming with her old lover. ‘They walked on, all three together, saying little, but thinking perhaps all the more. They passed through the pleasure grounds; they lingered among the roses and the lily-blooms; they watched the gold fishin the fountain. The air was balmy, sweet, and fragrant with the odor of flowers. “Let us go on to the park,” said Marian Hethcote; “it will be very pleasant there.” They passed through the shrubbery and entered the park. The beautiful fragrant gloaming had set in; the water of the lake was tinged with crimson and gold ; a lovely light lay over the trees; there was a faint murmur as the wind swayed the branches of the trees and stirred the leaves. The peace and beauty, the loveliness and re: _ pose, touched them. (E(@) ese Eomicbooks