The Widowed Bride — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. CHAPTER I. ALICE AND RENA. The declining sun of a cloudless September day was irrad1- ating, with its level beams, a peaceful Kentish landscape, traversed in a north-easterly direction by the shining tides _ of the river Medway, while the purple crests of a range of not inconsiderable hills, outlined against the horizon, were wrapped in a vail of tender haze, and the vivid green of the - road-side hedges suggested spring, rather than early autumn, to the casual observer. Under the plumy shadows of the dense-growing hedges, upon the shoit, velvety grass of the road-side, an old man _ sat, his shoes and garments powdered over with dust, while two little girls, apparently eight or nine years of age, played and frisked round him—brown-faced, hardy-looking little elves, with bare feet, ragged calico frocks, and tangled hair insufficiently protected from the sunshine by tattered straw hats tied under the chin. At the first glance they seemed to bear a singular resemblance to one another—at the second — an observant eye could detect a wide difference. ‘The taller, and apparently the elder by a year or so, was dark, with large, hazel eyes, fringed by long lashes, hair growing low upon her forehead, and teeth that shone like pearls between her rosy, parted lips; while the smaller and slighter of the two was fair, where the shadow of her frayed hat had, in some measure, kept the sunshine from her brow, with brown GComilcbooks:.co mn