Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 15 tall and slender, was sharply defined by the flickering jets as she stood on the hearth with her back to me. There was something in her attitude which struck me with an unde- fined feeling of disaster. My heart began to flutter—I ran ” and stood side by side with her, looking up into her ace. That face, in which I gazed, was pale and perplexed; wonder, or terror, or remorse, had contracted the arching brows until they met in two depressed curves; her dark eyes, questioning, affrighted, fixed themselves upon the crumbling embers, as if to read a dreaded destiny; her bosom heaved with coming tears, as yet restrained. ‘“‘What grieves you so?” I whispered ardently. ‘* My darling, tell your sister everything.” She turned and clasped me to her heart with a long, shuddering sigh. ‘What shall I tell you, Ivanilla?” she murmured. “Your whole heart—everything. Why has the coming of Cecil Beaumont affrighted you? Who has stolen the love away that the poor young Southerner covets?” She listened to me in dread silence—she scarcely breathed—her pulse seemed suspended. Again that shud- dering sigh rent her bosom; but she did not speak. I threw back my head and looked at her, and she turned her face away. | *< Alas! you hide your heart from Ivanilla!” I moaned. ‘‘You have thoughts which you never told to me! Tell me—tell me, my beautiful—you have a lover?” . ‘* No!” she cried, in a tone which startled me. Her sad- ness had vanished—her face vibrated into an incontrollable smile, sudden and strange; she met my gaze, flushed, and vailed my eyes with her velvet palm a moment. When she released me, she was calm again; that rapture, or agitation, nad passed away, and I was shut out after all. ‘“Who-is Cecil Beaumont?” I asked, after a long pause. ‘* He is a gentleman from Virginia—a clever author, they say. You appeared much delighted with that book, *¢ Veronico”’—that was his.” ‘< He has a grand genius, then. Pity you could not love such a soul! And he does adore you!” <©T am very, very sorry to be forced to believe that!” said my sister, gravely. ‘But why? His character is nop——” Comicboo cS co