THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE. BY M. E. BRADDON, Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," etc. OU wouldn't think it, to look at her now, sir," said the old clown, as he shook the ashes out of his blackened clay, "but madam was once as handsome a woman as you'd see for many a long day. It was an accident that spoilt her beauty." The speaker was attached to a little equestrian company with which I had fallen in dur ing a summer day's pedestrianism in Warwickshire. The troupe had halted at a roadside inn, where I was dawdling over my simple mid-day meal, and by the time I had smoked my cigar in his companionship, the clown and I were upon a footing of perfect friendliness. I had been not a little struck by the woman of whom he spoke. She was tall and slim, and had something of a foreign look, as I had thought. Her face was chiefly remarkable for the painful impression which it gave to a stranger. It was the face of a woman who had undergone some great terror. The sickly pallor of the skin was made conspicuous by the hectic brightness of the large black eyes, and on one cheek there was a scar the mark of some deadly hurt inflicted long ago. My new friend and I had strolled a little way from the inn, where the rest of the company were still occupied with their 255 |