A Heart's Bitterness — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

76. | A HEART'S BITTERNESS. ‘Kate, Iam going to wait here a little, and look at this _ lady’s sketches, if she will show them.” Kate and the little page seated themselves a little way . off, and the page sentimentally picked the white rays off a daisy, to the old tune, ‘‘ He loves me, he loves me not.” ‘©T am sorry you are lonely,” said Violet. ‘‘1 am not; there is so much here to be seen and done. May I see your sketches?” Helen Hope opened the portfolio of small sketches, and Violet turned them over with exclamations of wonder and ~ delight. JT do not pity you at all,” said the young countess. ‘‘ I think it must be heavenly to be able to do such charming things, and to feel that you are independent, and can go and come and make your own way.” «We all prefer some lot we do not have,” said Helen. ‘‘T, whose heritage has been poverty, homelessness, loneli- ness, namelessness, have craved with a fiery thirst, a passion of desire, a name, rank, station, fortune. Can you wonder that once, when I thought they were all just in reach of my hand, that | was mad with hope and joy—that the fulfill- ment of my one dream intoxicated me, and that sudden de- spair, the ruin of my hope, has made me wild, heart-broken? When your husband praised my voice, my air, my face, my accomplishments, when he spent hours at my side, when his were the words and looks that I have heard lovers use, was it a wonder that I nourished the thought that I should be the Countess of Leigh?” ‘But are all’ marriages to be made like this, and is this love that has such selfish foundations?” said Violet. <‘‘ You loved him for rank, for name; he sought me for fortune; I accepted him, to end persecution and pursuit. Where in all this is love?” : ““T loved him,” said Helen. ‘‘'To me, from his air, his title, he seemed a god; and when IJ thought he stooped to me, my whole soul was full of gratitude; and yet it was only because I was poor and nameless that I thought he stooped, for in myself I think I am as fit to be a countess as any one. I could carry the rank as well as you.” : ““Much better,” said Violet, gently. ‘I am not hand- _ some, and you are, very; and I am not accomplished.” ‘“You do not need accomplishments—they are beggarly means of getting bread; and if you are not what is called — Gomicbooks (E (0)