His Other Wife: A Novel — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

4 MR. CROFT'S WARD. 103 Faith soon came to feel that the air of Lucerne was strangely chill and ungenial, and sometimes she fancied it full of mystery. The governess was a more cheerful feature in the men- age. She was a sprightly and alert little New England woman, with very thrifty, cheery ways, and a friendly dis- position that always met one half way. Faith soon be- came much attached to Miss Draper, who was her con- stant companion. : One other member of the household oppressed the girl singularly. This was the housekeeper. Mrs. Foster was a tall, slim creature, with the blackest of hair over the palest of brows. Her features were as expressionless as if they had been carved in chalk. She wore dark-green spectacles like goggles, that fitted close round her eyes, which, she said, could not endure either light or air. " Also she wore across her brow a wide, green silk shade, that fell like a mask over the upper part of her face; and, whenever she emerged from the dim light of her own room, she was sure to throw a vail over her_head and face, because of a peculiar sensitiveness of her skin to the action of light and air. Add to these eccentric costumes a taciturnity that amounted to moroseness—a reluctance to answer the simplest question—an absolute avoidance of all compan- ionship—and we have a pretty accurate description of the housekeeper at Lucerne. She was of a piece with the general exceptionalness of the whole establishment. GComichoo “Si: (E(@) im =)