The Argosy, Volume XXIV — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

Gabriel’s Appointment. 19 said, the poor starved lungs. On one of these occasions she took her to Longmorton, the small market-town where the station was ; and, as she usually did, inquired for letters at the post-office. They had no second post in the village, but could sometimes forestal the next day’s intelligence by an expedition of this kind. As it happened, there were letters both for Miss Kerr and Grace Pyne, and good Mrs. Salisbury’s satisfaction in handing the welcome despatch to her humble companion was all the greater for the absence of ‘“‘ Miss” before Grace’s name. ‘There, my good girl, I hope that will cheer you up. Read and enjoy it, for I do not want to talk; I have enough to think of, besides attending to the pony.” She took care not to look that way for the next mile or so, that the hands, whose trembling the rustle of the paper betrayed, might have time to grow more steady. The shy, quiet Londoner, with her neat, sober dress and industrious fingers, had made great progress in Mrs. Salisbury’s esteem ; her reticence contrasting favourably with the ready tongues of her village acquaintance. It was so seldom that Grace Pyne’s voice was heard, except in answer to a question, that it was rather a surprise when she suddenly begged to ask if they should be passing anywhere near Lowlevels. ‘Ves, within an easy walk across the fields. Do you wish to call there ? ” . “Tf it would not be giving you too much trouble, ma’am—if I might be set down, I could walk up, after I had spoken to Mr. “Martin.” “ You want to see Mr. Martin? We will go up to the house, then. I should like to speak to him myself.” “Thank you, ma’am,” said Grace, pressing her hands nervously together on her lap, and looking so steadfastly at the distance before her, that Mrs, Salisbury quite enjoyed the thought of the treat she was giving her in that view of the moor. The pony, however, to whom scenery was a secondary object compared with his own stable, no sooner found his nose in a direction that promised a longer road than he intended, than he began to behave as ladies’ pets usually do. When, between weak chastisement and fervent coaxing, he was induced to acquiesce, he did it under se much protest, that his mistress really had enough to absorb all her attention in bringing him to the gate of Lowlevels. When she could extend her notice beyond his refractory ears, she became aware of an unexpected apparition—that of young Medland, looking surprisingly clean and tidy, and handling a loaded wheelbarrow as if he had been used to work all his life: which he certainly never had been to her knowledge. At the sight of the pony-carriage he ran with officious alacrity to open the gate and admit them into the drive. ‘Who would have thought of seeing you here?” was Mrs. Salisbury’s uncomplimentary remark, as he touched his cap. “I comicbooks.com