The Widowed Bride — page 201: what you’re looking at

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

i 192 % THE WIDOWED BRIDE. “T have felt strangely drawn toward England of late,” he pondered to himself. ‘*Were I a more stanch believer in _ signs and omens, I should believe it to be the mysterious | beckoning of some unknown hand; but I believe I have passed the period of superstition. Had anything occurred to render my presence at Glenhampton necessary, Edith would have sent for me. I almost wish Kskett had been a little more circumstantial in his telegram.’ Even in arailway-girded land delays are sometimes inevi- table, and 1t was not until the fifth ‘day after the rector of Tregarvan had sent his telegraphic message that the Karl of Glenhampton descended from the car which had brought him from the railway station at the honeysuckle-canopied wicket-gate of the garden in which stood the rectory. Through the open study window the earl could catch a glimpse of his friend’s bald head, bending over his papers as absoroedly as if there were no outside world of bloom and light and fragrance. Lhe click of the garden gate latch roused the rector from his stucious trance. He sprang up, and in another moment had the earl by both hands in a delighted grasp, and led him into the quiet little rectory parlor. ‘You telegraphed to me?” said Lord Glenhampton, seating himself, ““Yes—I—lI telegraphed to you!” said the rector, rubbing | his nose in evident embarrassment. ‘‘I had something to tell you—something I thought, at the time, you could break to Lady Glenhampton better than any one else. But I was, perhaps, a little premature—it seems he has written to her,” ‘‘He! Whom do you mean!” demanded the puzzled earl. “Why, Ernest—Ernest Evelyn. He is married.” Indeed! and to whom?” asked the earl, not by any means with the astonishment that Mr. Eskett had expected to see. The rector was just opening his lips to reply, when the door opened and a slender figure glided in, leading little Phebe by the hand—the figure of the bride of less than a week, her bright hair hanging round her face in shining gold- brown tresses, her violet-blue eves sparkling with inno- -eent happiness. and her cheeks glowing like the roses that swung athwart the casement at every breeze. - For an instant Lord Glenhampton sat pale and rigid as if he had been turned into a statue of ice, and then he rose up, ’ Pe DY wae A TA! i> ¥ ,