The Widowed Bride — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

bea ae THE WIDOWED BRIDE. vee babies to my care and oversight. Well, well, Teton nows I did my duty; although no one could have foreseen —but I am getting in advance of my story again! ‘The head nurse left in charge of the three children was an elderly Welsh woman, Elison Polwheal by name—one of those quiet, softly moving persons who say but very little, yet always contrive to impress you with an idea of their strong, peculiar character. She had been Mrs. Evelyn’s —I beg her ladyship’s pardon, the Countess of Glenhamp- ton’s—nurse, in years before, as I have heard, and was trusted almost boundlessly. I myself thought that Elison was the best person who could be left in charge of the three children; but it only shows how liable we all are to be mis- taken in our estimates of each other. No sooner was the earl and countess safely in Sicily than what does Elison Polwheal do but go and fall in love with a stupid old gar- dener or bailiff, attached to the place, although she was a good ten years older than he, and from that time her duties seemed only to claim a secondary part of her attention. I don’t think that at first she actually neglected the children, but they no longer received her undivided care. I was just about making up my mind to write to Lord Glenhampton, advising him to empower me to find some other less preoc- cupied guardian for the little things, when one night in the twilight Elison Polwheal rushed into my presence like a mad creature, tearing her hair, groveling on the ground, and ut- tering sentences so incoherent that I could comprehend nothing whatever of her meaning, except that some great calamity had occurred. ‘All too soon I learned what she meant. She had left the children playing in the meadows, while she had just been across the field to intercept this swain of hers on his home- ward way. She had staid longer than she meant. The lit- tle creatures had somehow strayed through a hole in the fence of whose existence she was unaware, and found their way down to the river side, and she was only in time to see them perish before her eyes.” ~ “Qh, how horrible!” murmured Alice, involuntarily draw- ing a long breath. “Tt was horrible!” said Mr. Eskett, slowly. ‘‘I shall never forget Elison Polwheal’s horror and dismay. I hardly knew what I said or did at first, but I summoned help as soon as _ possible, and we had the river dragged as far as ag acticable ee 3 G = 2s, 7 = : =~ ¢om cboo (S.cC 1 .