The Widowed Bride — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 11 “‘Grandpapa, ” said poor Alice, piteously, ‘I’m so tired! Aren’t we almost there?” “Yes,” said Jason Garfield, slowly; ‘‘yes, we are almost — home. “Don’t you see me coming nearer to the castle towers?” ‘‘But that isn’t home,” sighed Alice. ‘No; but don’t you see the little cottage on the edge of the woods, where there’s a wire fence?” “With the chimneys painted blue?” eagerly demanded Rena. Yes, with the chimneys painted blue; that 1s home!” He spoke in a tone of strange, subdued exaltation, and Alice’s weary face grew brighter at his voice. It seemed near, butit was a long walk to the tired pedes- trians before they reached the outermost limits of the grounds of Glenhampton. Keeping in the footpath which led alongside of the ornamented wire fence, with its hedge of glossy-leaved rhododendrons beyond, and here and there a glimpse of close-shaven lawn, dotted over with huge trees apparently centuries old, they presently reached a little gate imbedded in the green wall of leaves. ‘“Grandpapa, it’s locked,” said Rena, in. an accent of disappointment. “They mostly used to keep it locked,” said the old man; ‘‘but the key hangs just inside, where them as knows ean find it. Yes, I thought so.”’ He had deftly passed his arm through an aperture in the wire-work, and reached a little iron key, with which he un- locked the gate and admitted himself and the two children. Rena glanced up at the rustic little lodge, overgrown with a perfect wilderness of ivy, woodbine, and clematis; but the window shutters were closed, and there were no signs of life about the solitary door-stone. “<Grandpapa, what’s that?” cried Alice, einai closer to the old man, as some night-bird rustled through the gloomy foliage overhead. “Nothing to hurt yer,” said Jason, gazing dejectedly around. ‘*W ell, well, | hadn’t no right to expect things to stand still durin’ the years I’ve been away. She’s dead, or she’s moved away, an’ I haven’t the strength to go an inch farther.” He sank ren down on the eraer but the more €O comicbooks