Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 271: what you’re looking at

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

204 REYNOLDS’ WORKS late last evening, you cannot undertake the journey home- ward without adequate repose. How selfish I was! But you will pardon me, for I have become another being, you have given me new life, I feel young, oh, so young, that I can en- dure all possible fatigues! ”’ “There shall be no unnecessary delay,’’ responded the marquis. “ Rest assured that I am as anxious as your-— self for the arrival of that moment when Adolphus, Eliza- beth, and Frank shall be folded in your arms. Yes, it will prove a spectacle that I long to gaze upon. Dear Alexan-. drina, though changed in appearance,’ he added, with a smile, “Il am not so old that I need nursing. It is now nearly three in the afternoon; if you choose to depart in an hour, let a post-chaise be sent for from the town. Or perhaps you have your own travelling-carriage? ”’ - “Tt has been unused for years,’’ replied Lady Everton. ‘But we will have a post-chaise. We will commence our journey this evening; it will take us.at least some distance toward the nearest line of railway connecting the princi- pality with the metropolis. Worthy Mrs. Jameson and my faithful old footman Humphrey shall accompany us.” Having thus spoken, Lady Everton, who was full of a feverish excitement, presenting indeed a wondrous contrast to her slow, measured, and thoughtful movements when the marquis had first beheld her in the morning walking in the garden, — Lady Everton, we say, in this new state of mind, flew to the bell; and when Humphrey made his appearance, she issued her instructions in a tone of cheerful volubility that filled the old man with delight. For the faithful dependent had already learned from Mrs. Jameson who the visitor was, and the many glad tidings he had brought with him into Wales; so that he was overjoyed to read in his mistress’s manner a confirmation of all he had thus heard. It was about six o’clock in the evening of the second day after the incidents which we have been relating, that a hired vehicle from a railway station approached Stamford Manor, and in a few minutes entered the grounds in the midst of which the house stood. Elizabeth, Frank, and Adolphus had not long risen from the dinner-table and retired to the drawing-room, where they were seated at the moment Gomicbooks (E(0)