The Widowed Bride — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

‘ yy ri oe THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 91 CHAPTER XII. MISS CLIVE. It was a woman's figure, tall and very slender, dressed in the deepest and most somber black, of some heavy material, which fell in straight folds from her shoulders to her feet, save where a black cord and tassel girded it around her waist, after a fashion as antique as it was unbecoming. Her hands, long and slender, with taper fingers, on one of which gleamed the only ornament she wore, a heavy circlet of gold, where the wedding ring is usually placed, hung listlessly by her side, and she moved with a slow, gliding motion, that re- sembled undulation rather than walking, while her face, absolutely colorless as the whitest of marble, had a set rigidity in every lineament, and her hair, very long and thick, was not confined or bound up in any way but streamed down her back. But its color was more remarkable even than the style in which it was worn—a pale, lusterless gold, or flaxen, thickly threaded with white, although the deli- cate grain of her skin, and the unwrinkled smoothness of her forehead bore witness to the fact that she was not a middle-aged woman. Her eyes, of a light, glassy blue, had the peculiar, unseeing expression which we attribute to somnambulists, except when she fixed them full on some object directly before her, when a quivering sapphire light would seem to flow into them, and her intentness of gaze would be almost startling. Rena turned an eager, inquiring gaze toward Lady Blanche as this strange apparition glided into the room. “Tt is Miss Clive, my old governess,” said Blanche, and she ran to throw her arms around the black-robed figure and cover the pale lips with kisses, leading her up to the new-comer as she did so. ‘“‘Rena, this is Miss Clive, mamma’s dearest friend,” she said, ‘‘and, Miss Clive, this is Miss Rena Percival, my dear- est friend!” Rena had difficulty to prevent herself from shuddering as the cold hand lay for a instant in her own like that of a corpse, and the colorless lips murmured a few conventional words of greeting. Then Miss Clive took her seat next to Lady Glenhampton, and dinner began. Rena could not help seeing that the strange-looking woman was as excep- comicbooks (E(0) m