Lady Evelyn — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

144 The Rescue. anine, after all. Apropos of nothing, Trevannance is off again. His father must play host at Royal Rest. What restless beings these men are!”’ “Ah! I don’t know Mr. Trevannance. Where does he OP “Up the Nile, down the Niger, across the Amazon— ‘anywhere, anywhere out of the world!’ We shall miss him horribly—the only man I know who talks to me, and can talk, without platitudes or compliments hack- neyed and old as the hills. Pity he don’t marry. As Thackeray's old dowager Lady -Kew says, “A man like that should live at his places, and be an example to his people. But they won’t. He leaves to-night, and I am —sorry.”’ The countess said nothing; she understood her friend; and was sorry, too, perhaps. They both knew intuitively that Lady Evelyn had refused him, and that was why he was off “up the Nile and down the Niger.”’ They had left the park gates far behind them, and were bowling along the most delightful of high- roads, the wav- ine trees on either hand arching overhead, and forming a long natural avenue. The steppers were wonderful beauties to “go,” spirited if you like, but kindly and - well in hand, and bowled along over the broad, rolling road, swift and smooth, when suddenly—it was the most abrupt and tragic thing conceivable—a man leaped out from among the trees and fired one, two, three shots in quick succession from a revolver. Before the report of the last had died away he had vanished. ‘The first shot missed; the second raked the flank of the off-wheeler; the third whizzed over the head of the Countess of Clon- tari, within an inch of her temple; and the ponies, with wild snorts of pain and rage and terror, were off and away like the wind. The shots were heard. A party of gentlemen far in the rear—Lord Clydesmore, Lord Clontarf, General Trev- annance and his son—set spurs to their horses and gal- loped furiously in the direction. But a far-off, mighty cloud of dust was all that remained of the pony- _phaeton, and a man, standing all agape under the trees, the onlv living thing visible. “What is it, my man? Who Bree those shots?” shout- ed General Trevannance. - comicbooks (ele)