The Widowed Bride — page 168: what you’re looking at

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

IME WIDOWED BRIDE. 159 ‘“How long has she been with you?” asked Captain Evelyn. ‘Nearly a year.” Captain Hrnest Evelyn had no opportunity to see much more of Rena’s sister until late in the afternoon, when she came out with a basket of roses in her hand, her beautiful face shaded with a broad-brimmed straw hat. ‘They are wonderfully alike,” he thought, as he watched her light figure move down the garden walk with a sort of swaylng grace. ‘‘But Rena is a lovely landscape seen in the glow of sunshine, and this girl is like the same thing by moonlight! Yet there is a marvelous similarity.” As the thoughts passed through his mind, he rose and advanced courteously toward the girl. ‘Let me carry the basket, Miss Percival?” ‘‘T am only going a little way,” said Alice, shrinking and coloring, for her secluded life at Tregarvan Rectory had unused her to society. ‘But it is too heavy for you to carry even a little way,” he rejoined, laughingly. ‘‘EKven roses have weight, and I should judge by the avoirdupois of the basket there is some- — thing more substantial beneath.” “You are right,” said Alice, laughing, as the pleasant nonchalance of his manner restored her own ease; “‘it 1s a basket of good things which Mrs. Eskett wishes carried to old Paul Powis, who is ill with the rheumatism, and lives just beyond the hill.” «Do you know, Miss Percival,” said Ernest, as he walked along, ‘‘that you are wonderfully like your sister!” Alice looked up, with a bright smile and a blush. ‘‘T was wishing to ask you about Rena.” she said. ‘‘It 1s several weeks since I received a letter from her. Is she well?” ‘Quite well, I believe.” «And happy?” ) ‘‘Tfow can any one fail to be happy who receives such universal homage as she?” asked Captain Evelyn, with a hidden accent of bitterness that Alice failed to comprehend. ‘“My sister Blanche worships her; she reigns at Glenhampton Castle as if she were a crowned queen. Happy! Of course she is happy!” | ‘She deserves it,” said Alice enthusiastically. — . ‘I do not doubt that in the least,” Captain Evelyn an- swered, | Eomicbooks Eo