Beadle's Dime Novels No. 14 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

16 THE EMERALD NECKLACE. not at all unbecoming to her, “ that the Percys are an ancient family, and that Clematis has good blood in her veins,” “T do not doubt it,” thought the artist, with a glance at the peach-like cheeks, so fresh and velvety, where the rich veins glowed with the very healthiest and best of blood. “But it is not on her father’s side alone that she is thus gifted; my own family was the peer of the Percys, in the good old days of Queen Bess, before this country was any more than a strange and unfamiliar dream. This necklace came into the family in 1595. It was presented by Mortimer Monteith to my beautiful ancestress, Lady Alice de Vere, on the day of her wedding to John, Earl of Lester. “ Mortimer Monteith was a Scotch cousin of the Lady Alice’s, who had once been a suitor for her hand, but who had been rejected. He was not a man to inspire the other sex with tender sentiment, says the tradition ; and he took his dis- missal in that silent sort of way which no one knows how to interpret. However, he was present at the wedding-feast, and gave the lovely bride this costly gift, clasping it about her white throat with his own hands. . “That night, when the bridegroom sought the chamber of his bride, he found her dead. in her bed; nor could all the science of the best physicians of that day say what it was that killed her. The emerald necklace which her maidens had forgotten to unclasp, was about her throat, sparkling and flash- ing like some beautiful serpent exulting in its power to de- stroy. At least, thus it appeared to some, while others would not acknowledge that it could possess any fatal influence. Monteith was never heard from afterward; and the widowed earl threw his life away in battle at the first opportunity. _“ After these tragic occurrences, the necklace slumbered many years in its casket. Upon the marriage of another beauty from the house of de Vere, it was sent, among other jewels, a present to the bride. Three wecks after the wed- ding, she was instantly killed, by being thrown from her horse, while out hunting. Singularly enough, she wore the emeralds at the time, having taken a fancy that they suited her green velvet riding habit. A whisper now breathed through the family that some evil and fatal influence lingered in the necklace. For a period of seventy years no one could ‘ comiliclbooks.com