A Struggle for a Ring — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

LADY ETHEL. 223 countess and Lady Gertrude deep in a discussion,. which ceased when she appeared; more than once a subdued conversation took place between them, during which she heard the name that thrilled her with such strange, sad _ pain. ‘‘Lady Ethel Pierpont will be here this evening, Miss Derwent,” said the countess, one bright morning. ‘‘ Should you mind taking Floss for a walk? She does not seem well. I shall have some arrangements to make for my visitors, so that I shall not read this afternoon.” For the haughty, dainty, luxurious countess to disturb . herself for any visitors was a thing unheard of—a thing unprecedented, and Alice judged of the importance of Lady Ethel from that. ‘«She would never disturb herself for me, were I twenty times her son’s wife,” thought Alice. She was very patient. She tied a long blue ribbon round Floss, and set out for a long ramble. She went through the corn-fields, where the ripe wheat stood in huge sheaves _ —where the lark rose soaring into the blue sky—thinking so little of the lovely surroundings, and so much of the dark-browed husband who had never been her lover. Floss pulled in vain at the ribbon; Alice almost forgot the little dog’s existence. It walked on with a keen sense of dig- nified injury very-amusing to behold, although it was well that the countess was spared that sight. Thinking, under the golden sunlight, of the handsome, princely young husband who had married Jher, contrary to all the tradi- | tions of his race, just to save her fair fame from the faintest shadow, she stood with her fairest face raised to the dark- blue sky, crying out, with a passionate voice, that Heaven would give her his love. cS (ee) (EO) TRIG ,00