The Widowed Bride — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 17 whose straight, soft folds fell classically around her, with only a flower or a ribbon in her hair. She needed no orna- ment to enhance her attractions, and she was perfectly aware of the fact. Close beside Miss Clive, in truth, leaning over the back of the chair in which she sat, stood Arthur Hunsworth, the family lawyer of the Glenhamptons. For nearly a century, the legal business of the family at the castle had been trans- acted by the Hunsworths, grandfather, father, andson, and a cordial friendship had also existed during all these years between lawyers and clients, which the present Mr. Huns- worth was about to seal by a marriage with Lady Glen- hampton’s friend and governess, Antonia Clive. Arthur Hunsworth was a fine-looking man of about thirty, with hazel eyes, clustering brown curls, and a pleasant square mouth, overshadowed by a dark mustache—a man whom any woman might think it no shame to love and trust implicitly—and Antonia Clive evidently gloried in the fact that she had won this noble heart and nature to be her own. You could read it in her soft eyes uplifted to her lover’s face, in the rosy flush which stole over her face when he spoke to her, or allowed his eyes to rest lovingly upon her transparent brow. ‘Day after to-morrow, Antonia!” he said, caressingly. ‘T"he time draws very near now.’ ‘“‘T wish it were sooner;” Miss Clive exclaimed, with a sudden impulse, as her fingers involuntarily closed over the hand which had taken hers, a willing captive. ‘“My darling—why?” ‘TY don’t know, Arthur—I can’t tell! Do you never ex- perience sensations which you cannot account for in somany words?” ‘‘Antonia always believed in omens and nvemanitionslt laughed Lady Glenhampton, lghtly. ‘‘You will have to effect a radical cure, Mr. Hunsworth. Wait until you are a bride, Antonia, and then you will be the first to laugh at these idle fancies.” Little Lady Blanche had come up to her mother's side, and stood there, gravely listening. ‘‘And I am to be Miss Clive’s “bridesmaid, mamma, am “a not?” she asked, with eagerly shining eyes, ‘“‘and hold her glove for her?” ‘Yes, darling,” answered Antonia, ‘‘and you are to pass ECOMIcbOOksS €oO mn