A Heart's Bitterness — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

— = —<— oe ee > On that day, glorious at Leigh Towers for the bringing home of Norman Leigh’s bride, there was a tenantry dinner at three o’clock,. After lunch, Violet accompanied Lord Leigh to the great dining hall to see the tenants. Leaning on her husband’s arm, clad in the soft gray of falling evening, where her youthful blogm and the flush of her roses lent the pink tints of the flying sunset, and her lovely eyes seemed as if the first stars that look out in the night, Violet had not circled the board of feasting before the hearts of all, menand women, were at her feet. For the rest of that day, and for many other days, the chief talk on the Leigh estates was of the bride. | Somewhat cheerful she went to Kate to bedressed for din- ner. Sensitive as an olian harp to every breath about her, Violet responded to joy when joy surrounded her, and ~ standing among the guests who thronged the splendid halls which owned her mistress, smiles wreathed her lovely red mouth, dimpled her round, smooth cheeks, and lurked in the velvety brownness-of her innocent eyes. The ball-room and the reception’ rooms were bowers of fragrant bloom, the halls, and corridors, and splendid apartments, all richly renovated, quivered with light, and the sweet air shook with music, while among lovely, and noble, and richly clad guests, gleaming in ancestral jewels, moved none lovelier than the Bride of Leigh. | But suddenly her sensitive soul caught a new alarm. She was standing near a refined, elderly lady, of good family and moderate means, who had been introduced to her as Miss Whately. Violet, with her natural instinct of making herself agreeable, was giving a few of her sweet looks and words to the stranger, when she said: — «¢ All of us in this immediate neighborhood are rather old to be your companions, Lady Leigh, but I expect to have with me, in aday or two, my niece, Miss Ambrose, and I hope you will enjoy her society; she is beautiful and accom- plished. Lord Leigh, I believe, knows her well.” Had a serpent started up from the floor at her feet Violet could not have felt a sharper start of fear. Miss Ambrose! The name was wedded to the agony of that wretched hour when Leigh’s faithlessness had been revealed to her. Violet, as all those with a strong craving for universal love and commendation, was of a jealous nature. on A HEART’S BITTERNESS. 87 a comicbooks:co