Lady Julia's emerald Author:Katharine Wylde Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I Nine Years Later "lesley!" The letter fell from the sick woman's hand, and the cushion escaped to the floor beyond her reach. She sank back on... more » the horsehair bolster gasping for breath. " Lesley ! " A cough took her, shaking her wasted form, and beads of perspiration rolled from her brow. She stretched her hand for the glass of water, but the exertion was too great; she dropped it, shivering the glass and losing the last precious drops. Her eyes filled with tears of despair, and her lips moved in a prayer for patience. " Why, Aunt Hannah, you don't seem so well tonight," said a young man's pleasant voice. He had walked in without ringing, and at once set himself to rearrange her belongings with the deftness of one used to sick people. WUl Churton was a medical student. " Could you find Lesley for me ? " gasped Mrs. Duncan. " I'm lost without her, and she does try me so when she goes off idling like this. And—and— Will—I've had bad news. I've heard of a danger threatening, and I must warn her. Where can she be ? " " HI find her," said Will, nothing loth. Lesley was painting on the moor behind the town. At this hour the sun was low in the west, and his glory shone between purple clouds, making bars and wedges of gold, pouring fire upon the burnt grass, and stainingthe fir-trunks blood red. Lesley had put all that into her picture, and a great deal more. She painted with passionate energy, slender hands trembling, eyes rapt, a smile of pure enjoyment on her lips. So absorbed was she that she did not notice a stranger who had gradually drawn nearer. He was a man well over fifty, of prepossessing appearance, and it was evident that he admired either the painting or the painter very much. Probably the painter. Lesley was tall and of singular grace, wi...« less