The Widowed Bride — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

TUE WIDOWED BRIDE. 175 ently quite unstudied; but Lady Glenhampton perceived now that he was in no ordinary mood, and her pulse thrilled with an uncomfortably quick movement. -**To what news do you allude, Mr. Poynings?” she asked, speaking more courteously than she had done before. ““To what is doubtless a perfectly unfounded story— the rumor that Lady Blanche, your daughter, is engaged to Lord Vere Temple.” “You are mistaken in supposing it unfounded,” said the aes calmly, ‘‘Lady Blanche zs engaged to Lord Vere emple.” 3 “With your consent?” asked Mr. Poynings, the grayish whiteness overspreading his face, as if some invisible paint- er’s brush had touched it. ‘“‘With my full consent and approbation!” Mr. Poynings advanced a step or two toward his inter- locutor. | — —-©Then, Lady Glenhampton, you have played me cruelly false!” he said. “T! Played you false, Mr. Poynings! Will you tell me what you can possibly mean?” Lady Glenhampton rose with a stately dignity that might have quelled and overborne any one less resolute than Theo- dore Poynings, but he recoiled not a step. “Do you tell me, Lady Glenhampton, that you do not know that I have been steadily, and for all these years, aspiring to your daughter’s hand.” , ““You?” she echoed. ‘‘And why not I, Countess of Glenhampton? I ama genkeman, by breeding and education, if not by birth—I ave means, and I have contrived to attain a position of which any lawyer in the three kingdoms might be tee a proud ““Through my intercession and endeavor,” coldly inter- posed the countess. : ‘Tam willing to confess that it was, partly, through your. lacyship’s intercession and endeavor, for which I am not ungrateful. But, do you remember to wnat I owe your kind interest in my welfare?” She sat quite silent, looking straight at him. __ ‘IT have endeavored to be your friend always,” she said, putting her hand up to her throat, as if the slender band of m GOMIGDoOoO <S (e(@)