Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 340: what you’re looking at

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

' THE TEST OF LOVE 323 continued. ‘“‘ I have said, therefore, enough to convince you of my position. You behold it, you have understood it. But poor as I am in purse, my heart is rich in boundless illimitable love for you. There are two alternatives between which I have to choose. An opportunity presents itself for me to seek my fortune in a far-off land. That is one alter- native. The other is, that 1f you will bestow your hand on me, you will raise me to your own rank in life, and I may have a chance of obtaining a livelihood in my native country. Those are the alternatives, dearest Juliana; my decision depends upon the next words that issue from your lips.’’ If the Honourable Miss Farefield did not start, did not even raise her head from the youth’s shoulder, when he thus undisguisedly, frankly, and even boldly demanded her hand in marriage, it was because she was seized with a perfect stupor of astonishment. But he himself noticed not the effect which his words thus produced upon her, inas- much as he could not behold her countenance; his cheek rested upon her temple. And she was astounded. As the reader is well aware, she had regarded Frank only as the object of a passion that devoured her, only as the means of assuaging the fires that were consuming her, only as being whom she could cherish as the idol of a secret iad eit amour. But to become his wife, to sacrifice herself to one who had been a lackey, to wed the poverty in which he seemed to be steeped, to descend from the pedestal of her patrician rank, and become the object of scorn and con- tempt on the part of all who knew her, to abandon likewise the brilliant prospect of becoming mistress of Hawkshaw Hall, with a husband whose generous confidence she felt assured of being able to abuse in all circumstances where her own particular pleasures and fancies might be concerned, —to consummate, in a word, all these tremendous sacri- fices, no, Juliana Farefield was utterly unprepared for such a result. She was astounded therefore at a demand which, notwithstanding the fervid passion she experienced for Frank, she could not help regarding as a monstrous audacity on his part. Ah! it would have been very different indeed if he had revealed to her the whole truth, that he had found a father in the rich Marquis of Eagledean, that in due course he was to be publicly acknowledged as that great nobleman’s son, and that his sire would give him a fortune, which, if EOMIIGDOOksS (C(O)