The Widowed Bride — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE, 13 And how could he explain to them the inexplicable mys- tery? “Rena—Rena,” he said, ‘I can trust my own little woman to be quick and sure, and give it into my lady’s own hand—yjust the note and nothing else. “But where am I to go, grandpapa?”’ asked Rena.” “l'o the castle, child; Just follow the road along, it’s a good half mile and more, for all the towers look as if they. were so near; and you must make good speed, or you'll may- be be too late.” Rena, accustomed to render implicit obedience, took the note, and thrusting it safely into the bosom of her frock, tr ipped away upon the mission that was so new and strange to her, while Jason Garfield, tottering into the dusky apart-_ ment, sank helplessly upon the scantily furnished little bed in the corner. “Are you sick, grandpapa?”’ asked Alice, as she stood beside him, with a troubled face. “Tam tired, child, tired, that’s all. Keep quiet a while and let me rest,” he answered. “But I may hold your hand?” pleaded the child. ‘It’s dark, and the leaves rustle so, and I’m afraid.” He took her hand in his. ‘‘Now sit still, Allie, and sister will soon be back.” Little Rena had set bravely forth, following the broad, graveled path which led from the wire gates, and wonder- ing, as she walked, at the size and symmetry of the feath- ery elms and ancient walnut trees on either side. “They must have been growing a hundred years,” she thought; ‘‘and how smooth the grass is, and what a strange whispering souna the wind makes.” But presently she came to a road which diverged equally wide and stately to the left. She stopped puzzled. ‘‘T don’t know which way to go,” she pondered; and then, as a low flying swallow darted to the left, she ‘resolved to accept the omen and follow. But as the shadows of the trees grew denser, and the pur- ple darkness enwrapped the scene with an even heavier pall, and the far-off towers still eluded her view, Rena grew be- wildered and confused. She had somehow wandered from the wide road into anarrow path, bordered on either side by shrubbery and bushes. Here and there, through an opening in the laurels and acacias, she caught a ghee of m comicbooks.co