The Widowed Bride — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE, 63 CHAPTER VIII. MISS CHERITON’S ELOPEMENT. Life at th2 fashionable boarding-school at Hampstead glided by with a gentle current, which was as new as it was delicious to the young creatures, whose stream of existence hitherto had been so full of peril and restless change. Both partook in some degree of the impulsive, affectionate tem- perament which is sure to endear others and win the coldest heart with a sort of magnetic attraction. Both accordingly grew to be the popular favorites of the school, miniature queens, rulers in the petty world which surrounded them. As often as once a year Lady Barrowfield herself came to visit her little protegees, until her death, which occurred when Rena was about fifteen. ‘hey first learned of the melancholy occurrence through Miss Hartford, who sent for the sisters into her private reception-room, to impart to them the sorrowful tidings, with her handkerchief held decorously to her eyes. “Dead! Lady Barrowfield dead!” cried Rena, in aston- ishment, while Alice stood by silently. ““My dear, we are all partakers of the doom of mortality,” sighed Miss Hartford, ‘‘and her ladyship’s health has been painfully delicate for years. I sympathize with you deeply, my darling girls, for——” “But what are we going to do?” broke in Rena, abruptly, for at that moment she felt as if the mainstay of her own young life were drawn suddenly away. She bad grown, almost unconsciously, to depend upon Lady Barrowfield, to feel as if, in a measure, she had some claim upon the pale, sweet-faced lady who had turned the current of her destiny with her jeweled hand. ‘“‘l was going to teli you, mv dear,” said Miss Hartford. ‘‘Her ladyship left directions in her will that you and your sister should be continued here until the age of nineteen, at _ which time you will graduate.” “It was very kind of her,” said Rena, wistfully, and she listened mechanically to Miss Hartford’s string of platitudes that followed on the loss of their ‘‘dear relative.” (aie) <S opeees | | i comicboo