Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 267: what you’re looking at

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

250 REYNOLDS’ WORKS youthful lovers. There was a whole world of bliss concen trated in that first embrace, and joy has its ardour and its ecstasy, its bliss and its intoxication, for those of advanced years as well as for the young. A few minutes afterward we may behold them seated together upon a sofa, their hands locked in a firm elasp, their looks riveted upon each other. Then the marquis saw that Mrs. Jameson had spoken truly when she represented how comparatively slight was the alteration which had taken. place in the personal appearance of Lady Everton. Gradu- ally a mournful feeling stole into the heart of Lord Eagle- dean, and as a long-drawn sigh rose up to his lips and half- found vent ere he could stifle it, Lady Everton said, in a low, deep voice, “‘ Paton, there is yet a cloud upon your happiness.” | “Do you not find me much changed, Alexandrina, oh, very much changed?’ he asked. ‘“ Do you not see that I have grown old, while you have escaped the ravages of time? ”’ “ Hush, Paton, speak not thus of yourself to me,” said her ladyship, still in a soft voice and with looks of ineffable tenderness. ‘‘ I behold you now through the medium of a faithful memory; I behold you only in the light of that love which I have ever borne you, and which never has been im- paired by circumstance or by time. If you find me less changed than you expected, I rejoice, oh, I rejoice un- feionedly, for even now it is sweet to hear the language of admiration from your lips.’’ With these words Lady Everton threw her arms around the neck of the Marquis of Eagledean, and embraced him with as much fervour, with as much fond admiration, as if a long, long interval of years had not changed him nor made him old. The sadness fled away from his countenance, he smiled in happiness again, and sweet indeed were the smiles which played upon the lips of Lady Everton. ‘“Tt appears to me all like a dream,” she said, “ for I could not have hoped that there was any happiness in store for me in this world. And yet, I know not how 1t was, but still there would sometimes arise in my mind strange and unaccountable thoughts, that something would happen to alter my career upon earth, — some new phase in my destiny which was as yet unaccomplished. But, then, so often as J ) Gomicbooks. co