The Widowed Bride — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

26 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. near by; and, with Blanche holding her hand, and Ernest ruuning on before, she walked down the broad, graveled path leading to the western entrance of Glenhampton Park. - About half way to the gates, a gray-headed old man met them, walking very fast. Antonia recognized him as Mar- tin Valpy, the bailiff of the Glenhampton estates. ‘“Good-morning, Mr. Valpy,” she said, pleasantly; ‘‘I suppose you have been down to look at the fire? I was just taking the children there!” Martin Valpy touched his hat. “IT beg your pardon, Miss Clive,” he sad, hesitatingly; ‘‘but—if I might make so bold as to advise, maybe you’d better turn back. It’s no sight for a lady’s eyes, let alonea little child’s?” ““Why not?” Miss Clive asked, unconsciously. He drew closer to her, lowering his voice as he did so. ‘“‘Why, miss, it seems there was somebody took refuge in the lodge last night unknown to us all, as was burned to death—an old man, miss, and two children!” | ‘‘Burned to death!’ echoed Antonia, in accents of breath- _ less horror, her face blanching as she listened. “Yes, miss. Joseph, the under-gardener, he told me he was a-comin’ by there late last night, and he seed a light there, so what does he do but plucks up asperit, and goes in and there sees an old man with two little slips o’ gals asleep on the floor! So Joseph he asks what it all. means, and the man tells a pitiful tale about havin’ no home, and startin’ off early the next mornin’; and Joe, he was allers a soft-hearted creetur, Joe was—he not only let ’°em stay, but he brings ’em a hunk o’ bread and a mug o’ beer out of his missus cupboard. ‘Lord! he says, ‘you should hev seen “em eat!’ And Joe he went over to Lingley to sleep, along o° bein’ up early to get to work in Farmer Hawkins’ hop- fields, and so it come as he has cnly just heerd where the fire was. ‘They've been a pryin’ up the beams, miss, and _ they’ve found sumthin’ charred and crushed like human bones, an’ scorched that horrible that——’” But Antonia’s uplifted finger and deadly pale countenance warned him to desist in his catalogue of horrors. _ ‘‘Hush! no more!” she gasped, rather than spoke. “I beg your pardon, miss,” he said. ‘‘I was a-goin’ up to my lord, and I wouldn’t no-ways have you come sudden on — a scene like that!” - ¢€omicbooks.co