Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 326: what you’re looking at

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

s THE ENAMOURED SQUIRE 309 to whom she was speaking. Thus substituting the image of Frank in its youthful, delicate, and almost effeminate beauty, for the image of George Hawkshaw in its fine, handsome manliness, she contrived to speak more from the heart than she would otherwise-have been enabled to do. And when Hawkshaw’s arm encireled her waist, she tutored her fancy to believe that it was young Paton’s, and she felt a thrill of sensuous ecstasy sweep fervid and glowing through her entire form. And when too Mr. Hawkshaw pressed his lips to hers, it was still in imagination young Frank’s mouth that thus grew to her own; and as the boiling blood ran like lightning through her veins, the effect was to impart a more rapturous fervour to her kisses. At length the summons for luncheon, ringing forth from the belfry over the entrance tower, sprinkled the hot, stagnant air with its metallic sounds, and Mr. Hawkshaw led back his intended into the castle. After the repast. the squire requested a private interview with Lady Saxondale, which was of course immediately accorded, for her ladyship had received a rapidly whispered hint from Juliana to the effect that she had received an offer of Mr. Hawkshaw’s hand. Lady Saxondale led the way to the library, and there, without much circumlocution, the squire informed her of the step he had taken, and requested her assent to the match. Lady Saxondale, playing the maternal part to perfection, represented how dear to her was the welfare of her elder daughter, how jealously she had watched over that beloved child’s happiness, how pleased and gratified she was to think that her darling Juliana had won the esteem and afiection of so worthy a gentleman as Mr. Hawkshaw, and how cheerfully she (Lady Saxondale) gave her consent to the alliance. The speech was altogether a very beautiful one, eminently touching and pathetic; the only misfortune was the utter hollowness of the sentiments themselves and the guileful hypocrisy of the lips from which they came. However, Mr. Hawkshaw regarded it as a genuine outpouring of maternal love and affection, and taking her ladyship’s hand, he pressed it to his lips in token of gratitude for her kindness in consenting to part with such a matchless treasure as her daughter Juliana. “I avail myself of this opportunity, Mr. Hawkshaw,”’ GOmicdoo <S (S(O)