Beadle's Dime Novels No. 14 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

PENNON TELLS HIS srory. 101 even as the father spoke so gruffly the latch of the gate clicked, and Clematis started from her musings, to hear a voice at the door, and “ footsteps in the passage,” which sent the blood rush ing to her wan face. Even before the tea was served Pennon had told his story straightly, and asked the parents for the hand of their darling. “Tt will be hard parting from our only one,” murmured the father. “But it will be best for Aer—can you not see it will, hus- band ?” and the mother, like all mothers self-abnegating, look- ed at the rich light in her daughter’s eyes, and forgot her own threatened loneliness. “I will give you a portrait so like her that you will scarcely know the difference,’ and the young man laughed in the ex- ceeding lightness of his heart. “Ihave some curious things to tell you about that portrait—and about your necklace, too. Not now, for the tea is waiting.” That evening, he told to an interested trio of listeners, of the secret cause of the fatality of the necklace, of the wound he had received, and of its singular consequences. He pro- duced the emeralds, and showed to them the steel claw whose fangs had been death to the fair and young, years and centu- ries ago. 7 Fa _ “Let me take these gems to the city with me, and have a new setting made for them. They will then be as harmless as the most prosaic of precious stones, They are too beautiful to lie imprisoned in darkness forever.” “Tf you are really convinced, Mr. Pennon, that the emeralds themselves are safely to be worn, I will give them to Clematis as part of her trousseau.” “Don’t blush, Clematis, at that word,” whispered her lover. . “The truth is, we are already married; according to the vision. It will not seem so very strange when I really call you wife.” “T shall never rest,” said Mrs. Percy, “until I see that lion’s claw consumed in the fire to which it is destined,” “ We've just enough fire in the grate for the purpose,” said Clematis. . “Nay,” replied Pennon, “they must remain as it is; unti) our wedding-day. We will celebrate that happy time by. exorcising forever the evil genius of the necklace.” CommiclooolkkS.eomn)