The Argosy, Volume XXIV — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

tegdolts A R GOS -Y. SULY, 1877. GABRIEL’S APPOINTMENT. a OOO CHAPTER XIX. MRS, SALISBURY’S DIAMONDS. UR young artist, Alice Kerr, with Grace Pyne as her attendant, and Martin acting as courier, started for North Devon ina very different style from that in which she had commenced her journey to London, ‘The journey itself was no less a contrast. She had no adventures, and met with no misfortunes, and her companions afforded her very little amusement. It had been her private wish to have Lucy Pyne instead of Grace, but this could not be gratified ; and Grace, though attentive and respectful, was too silent and thought-- ful te be an interesting companion. Indeed, Alice held to her first. opinion, that however good and industrious she might be, there was. nothing interesting about her at all. Her dress was too respectable, her complexion too colourless, to be of the least use in a picture ;: and as for any romance being connected with one so demure and grave, it was simply absurd to think of it. The depths of tenderness and suffering that lay hidden beneath that plain exterior, Alice had! not skill to discover. She little dreamed that all she had ever felt, or thought she felt, all her poetical theories on woman’s love and patience under disheartening circumstances, were cold, indeed, com- pared with poor Grace’s experience of the reality. : There are many bitter troubles in life, and each heart knows its own ; but few can equal the pang of finding that the treasure of the heart—we will not say its idol, for faithful love is too holy a thing to be called idolatry—is not the pure gold we had believed it—that its glitter is dross, and its ring untrue. To love and lose is hard enough —to love without return is harder still; but to love, and begin to wonder that we can, is hardest and worst of all. VOL? "XXIV: B comicbooks.com