Her Faithful Knight — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

Darcy’s Mother. I4I answered Dorothy, blushing hotly. “But, as a matter of fact, I am not at all in love with any one.” _ “Not with my son?” Lady Derrick’s tone was one of incredulous amaze- ment. “Not in the least with your son. Nor is he with me, I should say. I am sorry you should have misunderstood the position of affairs, Lady Derrick, and I hope I have said nothing to pain you. But your son is perfectly heart- whole so far as I know.” . This was perhaps not absolutely veracious on the part of Miss Knight. But the note of patronage in Lady Der- rick’s tone had incensed her. In the rather awkward pause that followed her statement, Lady Derrick decided that this girl must certainly be either exceptionally cold- hearted or surprisingly untruthful. In any case, of course her aim was to entrap the Hon. Darcy into a marriage which, under certain existing circumstances, might not be wholly a misfortune. With Darcy’s impressionable, head- strong nature and the memory of other escapades of his on her mind, Lady Derrick would have been disposed to welcome this lovely nobody as a daughter-in-law with con- descending affectionateness, if not with effusion.. With his temperament, dear Darcy might have chosen so much more unwisely. But Dorothy’s cold attitude toward this irresistible wooer disgusted his mother, and she was not slow to communicate her sentiments to her son as soon as the pair were left alone together. “Isn’t she exquisite? Isn’t she Phidias’ Diana flushed into life? Tell me, truthfully, mother, did you ever see a more exquisite skin? It’s like the first flush of sunrise on snow. And her eyes, ‘the grayest of things blue, the greenest of things gray,’ her wonderful, searching, shin- ing eyes! They draw a man’s soul out. Tell me now, Eomichbooks (E@) what do you think of her? With the exception of your-