The Widowed Bride — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

70 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. her times and seasons, that the carriage drove slowly up the Jane, just as Adela, wrapped in a dark shawl to blend her figure as much as possible with the surrounding objects, glided down its shadowy way. Suddenly Rena pulled the check-string. “Stop a minute, George,” she whispered to the coachman. “T believe I’ve dropped my handkerchief.” The carriage came to a stand-still. Rena stealthily opened the door, and Adela Cheriton sprang in, exclaiming almost hysterically: ‘“‘Adolphe! dear Adolphe!” Miss Hartford screamed with terror. Rena received the full weight of the bouncing blonde in her lap. ‘‘What does all this mean?” sternly demanded the usually indulgent preceptress. ‘‘Can it be possible that this is you, Miss Cheriton? And why are you screaming after ‘Adolphe’? Where is he?” and she looked around in a bewildered way. ‘“‘He loves me; we are to be married; he promised to elope with me!” gasped Adela, scarcely knowing, 1 in her confusion, what she was saying. “Who?” questioned Miss Hartford, half-inclined to doubt the evidence of her own sense of hearing. ‘““M. Lemaire—my own, own Adolphe!” ‘<Nonsense!” slowly ejaculated Miss Hartford. ‘It isn’t nonsense, it’s the gospel-truth!” asserted Adela, growing more and more hysterical and incoherent. ‘You think you can bind love in iron fetters; you set too much value on the meaningless forms and ceremonies of a cruel world. His heart is all mine; I am willing to trust my future solely and entirely to him. Let me get out, I say! you have no right to stop me!” She struggled violently to escape from Miss Hartford’s detaining hands. _ ‘My dear, my dear!” said the poor lady; ‘‘there is some mistake here. M. Lemaire is engaged.to a young | French lady who gives lessons at the Fricandiere Institute.” ‘It is false!” cried Adela, theatrically. ‘<I have his dear letters here—see!” and she held them full in the glare of the carriage-lamps. my am afraid 1 must answer in some degree for that non- sense,” said Rena, with well-assumed gravity and perplex- ity. ‘‘M. Lemaire has never seen one of those letters, much less written them, I wrote them just for fun. JI never comicbooks co