The Argosy — page 261: what you’re looking at

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

Edina. 245 “Tt is a long lane that has no turning, Charles. And I don’t think patience and perseverance often go unrewarded in the long run. How did you fare to-day ?” “Just as usual. Never got a single chance at all. Look here, Edina—my boots are beginning to wear out.” A rather ominous pause. Charley was stretching out his right foot. “You have another pair, you know, Charley. These must be mended.” ° ; “But I am thinking of the time when neither pair will mend any longer. Edina, I wonder whether life is worth living for?” ‘Charley, we cannot see into the future,” spoke Edina, pausing for a moment in her work to look at him, a freshly-begun net in her hand. “If we could, we might foresee, even now, how very good and necessary this discipline is for us. It may be, Charley, that you needed it. Take it as a cross that has come direct from God; bear it as well as you are able; do your best in it and trust to Him. Rely upon it that, in His own good time, He will lighten it for you. And He will take care of you until it is lightened.” Charles took up the poker; recollected himself, and put it down again. Fires might not be lavishly stirred now, as they had been at Eagles’ Nest. Mrs. Raynor had been obliged to make a rule that no one should touch the fire save herself and Edina. “It is not for myself I am thus impatient to get a place,” resumed Charles. ‘“ But for the rest of them, I would go to-morrow and enlist. If I could earn only twenty pounds a year to begin with, it would be a help; better than nothing.” Some two or three months back he had said, If I can only get a hundred a year. What lessons of humility does adversity teach ! “Twenty pounds a year would pay the rent,” observed Edina. “TI never thought it was so hard to get into something. I supposed that when young men wanted employment they had but to seek it. It does seem wrong, does it not, Charley, that an able and willing young fellow should not be able to work when he wishes?” “My enlisting would relieve you of myself: and the thought, that it would, is often in my mind,” observed Charles. “On the other hand——” “On the other hand, you had better not think of it,” she interposed firmly. ‘We should not like to see you in the ranks, Charley. A common soldier is——” “Hush, Edina! Here comes mother.” But luck was dawning for Charley. Only a small slice of luck, it is true ; and what, not so very long ago, he would have scorned and scoffed at. Estimating things by his present hopeless condition, it looked fair enough. 7 One bleak morning, a day‘or two after the above ‘conversation, comicbooks.com—