The Widowed Bride — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

188 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. at sipping her cup of strong green tea, was as sober-looking-as if she had been a milliner, instead of a duchess. Lord Balfour sat opposite, reading a newspaper. He was a tall and handsome man of two or three-and-thirty, like, and yet unlike, hismother, whom he loved tenderly, in spite of her many whimsical peculiarities of character. ‘Come, mamma,” he said, after the duchess had skimmed through half a dozen morning papers, ‘‘you’ll not have time for a full-dress toilet if you don’t ring for Nancy and begin!” ‘There is plenty of time,” said the duchess, absently. But Lord Balfour took the paper from her with gentle violence, and escorted her to the door, where Nancy, her trusty tirewoman, met her. Between the Marquis of Bal- four and Nancy Briggs, the poor duchess declared she was always being ‘‘hurried out of her senses.” Lady St. Burgoyne, as she stood in the superb entrance hall of Burgoyne House, waiting for the carriage to be an- nounced, was like a duchess, in good truth, at last. Her dress of black velvet, with its sweeping train; her white vail of heavy wrought point d’Alencon, the coronet and stomacher of magnificent diamonds that she wore, made ~ her look like the nobly born lady that she was. Lord Bal- four looked admiringly at her. “If you weren’t a married woman, mamma, I should cer- tainly fall in love with you,” said he, sportively. ‘‘You look so nice!” — “Hold your. tongue,” said Lady St. Burgoyne, briskly, “and keep your compliments for Edith Glenhampton’s — irl!” : . And she gave him an energetic little tap with her jeweled fan for presuming to kiss her hand as he helped her into the carriage. - Owing to the united efforts of Nancy and Lord Balfour, the Duchess of St. Burgoyne was not more than fifteen minutes behind hand, when the carriage—a wide, old-fash- ioned vehicle, in which the duchess had made her wedding calls nearly half a century ago, stopped in front of the man- sion in Grosvenor square. eS mS = _ Parkinson, the porter, who had received his orders from | Miss Percival to admit all visitors at once to her presence, threw open the door and the tall duchess sailed into the drawing-room. ecomicbooks