The Widowed Bride — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 19 by a small brown form rising as if by magie out of the tall, tangled ferns at his feet. ‘‘Halloo!” he ejaculated, stopping abruptly, ‘‘what’s this? Is it pixy, elf; or brownie? Here, here, child, don’t run; nobody is going to harm you! Who are you, and what on earth are you doing here?” “Tm Rena!” sobbed the child, ‘‘and I’m lost!” ‘Why, where do you belong?” demanded Mr. Huns- worth, more puzzled than ever. “With orandtather. He’s down there, pointing with one tiny, trembling finger; ‘‘but I can’t find the place.” ‘“‘What place is it?” ‘It’s a little house where nobody lives, down by the wire gate in the hedge.” “Oh, the deserted lodge! But what is your grandfather doing there? Does he know that he is trespassing upon private grounds?” ‘‘He only came there to-night,” faltered Rena. ‘Oh, please take me there. I’m lost!” “Come, then,” said the lawyer, marveling within him- self. «Take hold of my hand, and we'll soon be there.” ‘Is it far?” piteously questioned the wearied child. _ “Not very; half a mile or so.’ Rena half ran, half hobbled by the side of her conductor, too thankful, to find herself going in the direction of her grandfather, even to think of the message he had intrusted to her hands. ‘For she was but a child, and fright, weari- ness, and solitude had combined to unsettle her weat ‘y mem- ory. An oil lamp—part of the long disused furniture of the abandoned lodge—burned dimly on the table, as Rena led her guide up the two steps. Little Alice sprang from her place beside the bed. “Oh, Rena,” she cried, ‘‘I thought you never were com- ing back.” _ She stopped as she beheld a stranger with her little sister, _ and shrank slyly back. But Arthur Hunsworth neither saw nor noticed her. His eyes were riveted on the bowed form which sat, its elbows supported on its knees, in a wooden chair, where the sickly yellow light of the lamp shone feebly on its wrinkled brow and szant, silvery hair. ‘The strange footstep sounding on _ the threshold seemed to rouse the old man from something “comicbooks mn :