Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

i fos ne H en * > - $ Se eee teenie A SEVERE THREAT. 137 exclamation within ; then soft footsteps approached the door, and a voice demanded, cautiously : _ «Who's there ?” ‘John !” answered the baronet, through the keyhole. Then the door swung slowly open and he strode over the threshold. A bit of a cot, three tiny rooms, but neatly and even handsomely furnished. There was a handful of fire burning in the diminutive grate, and a round table stood before it, laden with books and flowers—in the center a handsome lamp. The floor was covered with matting, there were a few good pictures on the gray-tinted walls, the windows were draped in muslin, there was a cottage piano, and a gilt cage with a yellow canary, like a puff of down, sound asleep on its perch, with its head tucked under its wing. Sir John closed and locked the door behind him, and ad- vanced to the fire, pausing upon the velvet hearth-rug to look down upon the woman before him. The dark beauty of the Andalusian ; eyes of a lustrous darkness, and hair like black satin; a complexion of cream and roses—a very beautiful woman |! As she stood there gazing up into his face, hard, ugly though it was (they looked like beauty and the beast standing there to- gether), it was easy to see that this woman-——inexplicable as it appeared—/oved the man before her with all her heart and soul. A woman no longer in her first youth, but with much of its beauty and fervor lingering still about her. ‘Tt is so long since I have seen you, John!” she said, laying her smooth cheek against his shoulder. ‘‘And Lola is away fiom home; I am so sorry! I let her go to Waltham with old Zingra ; for there is to be a grand ball at one of the big houses to-night, and they wanted Lola to sing. You are not angry, dear? Zingra will take good care of her, and we needed the money so much, for they promised to pay well.” She laid one little hand upon his, but he shook off her slight touch, roughly, as though it hurt him, and turning his back to- GEomicboo <S7EO s