Octavia's Pride; or, The Missing Witness — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

Loe ees se a ee FD DS Phat Ne OR OG ee ae I Ae Fw Bee oe DUES Se ¥ ae | , ee Ae . ‘ a fs d " > ; 7 oe ~ c= ig ‘ ee. fe : : : Ages id *. @ ens a OCTAVIA’S PRIDE. 19 in its tread, came gracefully across the carpet to the bed- side. ‘Octavia, my darling!” ‘Dear father, I hope you are comfortable to-night;” and bending from her stately height, she put two shapely white hands into his. She was a large but admirably proportioned woman, this Octavia Wainwright, with a dazzling complexion, pearly white and soft pink blending so exquisitely as to defy the imitation of art. Her hair, of which there seemed so luxu- riant a mass it almost looked too weighty for the classical head, was of a pale hue, neither brown nor red, nor yet, as the poets tell, of spun gold; but when the light glanced across it, it seemed to imprison myriad sunbeams whose gleaming beauty was rarer than that of gold. ‘The features were regular, but might have seemed heavy accompanied by any other figure. Upon hers the face, with its large, grave eyes whose blue wasscarcely so deep asthat of the violet, and its singularily vivid scarlet lips, seemed the only proper and possible complement. She was called everywhere a magnif- icent woman; no one ever questioned her right to reign queen and belle wherever she chose to venture. That this grand and-stately creature should be the idol of General Wainwright’s heart was scarcely strange, nor could any one marvel that he was ready to lavish upon her every luxury and costly adornment which lay within his power. ‘My darling!’ said he again, fondling the white hands which rested in his, ‘it has seemed so long to me while you were away. I hoped that you would arrive at noon.” ae shee not help it, dear papa. Those tiresome lawyers kept me.’ ‘What! Screw & Scattergood? Did they send for yout I did not know that.” There was again a gloomy cloud on his forehead, an un- easy gleam of his eye. cS) Eo Gomilcboo