The Widowed Bride — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 171 CHAPTER XXIV. LADY BLANCHE’S SUITORS. Through one of the many strange coincidences in this world, which rival the most glowing scenes of romance, at the same time that the Marquis of Balfour was vainly urg- ing his suit to Rena Percival, a second affair of the heart was transpiring among the rhododendrons at the eastern front of Glenhampton Castle, where a rustic temple, its colonnades overgrown with woodbine and ivy, stood within the musical sound of a fountain, where a group of cnpids seemed to disport themselves around the edge of a huge marble shell, dripping with limpid water. It was the very place for love to breathe its numbers, and so, perhaps, Lord Vere ‘Temple thought, when the guests all scattered in dif- ferent directions at the breaking up of the croquet party, and he led Lady Blanche Arden to this particular spot. ~ . **You are weary, Blanche,” he said, as she threw herself down on the rustic seat of twisted cedar boughs, which cor- responded so perfectly with the sylvan beanty of the whole lace. : ‘No, indeed, I am not,” she answered, gayly. ‘‘I could play croquet all day.” ‘But you look flushed.” «That is because the morning is so warm.” She laughed, and fanned herself with the brim of her straw croquet hat, and looked so bewitchingly pretty and blossom-like that Lord Vere Temple spoke out at once the words that had been trembling on his lips for so long. | ‘‘Blanche,” he exclaimed passionately, ‘‘I love you! There now! I have startled you, my little shy fawn; but you must not look so enchantingly beautiful if you don’t want a man to lose his senses in your presence. Dear Blanche,” he added, ‘‘is there anything terrible in the fact that I love ou?” She blushed vividly, but she did not seem by any means averse to the idea which had been so unceremoniously pre- sented toher mind. Perhaps he read the secret of her heart in her eyes, for he went on emboldened: ‘‘I may as well speak it out, dear little Blanche, for it has Eomicbooks mn (E(0)