The Widowed Bride — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

6 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. hair flecked with shifting lights of gold, and eyes of violet eray, full of limpid depths that seemed to sparkle far down below the irids. , ‘“‘Grandpapa! grandpapa!” this fair-haired sprite called oe out, pulling vehemently at the skirts of the old man’s coat, ‘me and Rena climbed up on the stile, and we saw, oh, sucl a many people way off, picking hops, and there were litt. girls like us—can’t we go, too? Grandpapa, are you asleep?” The old man slowly opened his eyes. : — **No, child, no; I was not asleep. Let us go on, Alice— we cannot be far off, now!” “But, look, grandpapa!” coaxed the child, as he rose with difficulty from his sitting posture, and she stood on tiptoe to peep over the rustic stile, where the other child was already balancing herself like a young acrobat. It was indeed a pretty, rural picture, the hop-pickers seeming to swarm over the fields below, while the river, winding through the meads like a ribbon of silver, lay be- yond, and almost completely embowered in woods, the tur- rets of a stately pile of architecture rose up between, and a sylvan village nestled in the hollow, scarcely more than a ~ mile or two distant. “Grandpapa!’ exclaimed little Rena, shading her eyes _ from the sun with one brown hand, ‘‘is that the place we're goin’ to?” | ‘Are you tired, my child?” asked the man, mournfully, as he laid one hand on her shoulder. , _“Yes—no!’ said Rena, doubtfully. ‘But we’ve walked a long way, and Alice’s feet are blistered.. Grandpapa, is this the place you used to live when you were a little boy?” “Hereabouts!” he replied, absently. “But show me the house, grandpapa!”’ ‘‘When we come to it, child, when we come to it,” he an- swered, with a sigh. ‘‘Come, Alice—come: Rena; we've a - weary way to walk yet.” Little Rena skipped down from the stile with a child’s cs elasticity, and caught hold of the old man’s hand. ‘é 33 ° ox € ; 3 * b, : ‘‘Come on, then,” she cried Alice, you may have my shoe, if you like—the one that the sole isn’t gone. It is — pretty good if you step on your toes.” ““My foot don’t hurt me so much now,” said Alice, “since I tied the green leaves round it, and grandpapa says we’re most there. Oh, Rena, see that big butterfly!—isn’t it | - comicbooks