The Argosy — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

54 MARGARET’S GRAVE. I. ARGARET GREY sat in the summer twilight singing to herself a plaintive song that she had learned years before, when she was a light-hearted girl in her pleasant home in merry England. The moon came softly up in the sky, and bathed her fairer face in -its fair light ; while the sweet breath of song floated out into the pur ple atmosphere. There had been talking in the next room. Mr. Ensor was leaning over his half-promised bride, Leslie Russell. He was a good-looking man of some eight-and-twenty years; and Miss Russell, coquette though she was, loved him. “To-morrow, or the next day then, you will give me an answer, Leslie?” What a tender touch his fingers had—what a subtle music lingered in every tone—as he leaned nearer to catch her whispered reply. And then—instead of the low “Yes” for which he waited, there came that burst of song in the other room; which drowned every other sound as the sunlight drowns the little wave of colour on the rose. Breathlessly he waited, and Miss Russell glancing up caught the eager glance of enquiry in his look, but not at her. “You are thinking of the song and not of me,” she exclaimed pet- tishly, for she was frightfully exacting and loved to try him. “ You need not expect your answer for a week, Mr. Ensor, though it would only be fair if I should tell you ‘ no’ this minute.” “ T willnot deny,” he said softly, “that the song interrupted me and my thoughts of you—or, I would rather say met it like a brave accom- paniment. I used to sing it years ago ; and, if my memory serves me faithfully, it is a song of youth and love. Can you wonder that it seemed like a prophecy ?” “ Are you telling me the truth, Richard ?” He bent over and stole a kiss from her red lips ; and murmured the refrain to the song which had so strangely moved him. ‘‘ Forgive me,” she said, the vexed frown vanishing from her face. “J will not make you wait. I will be your wife, Richard.” “Thank you! thank you, my darling! You have made me the happiest man in the universe! And now you shall tell me who the ugly little singer is who dared to trouble us with her song?” “You are laughing at me now,” she said shyly, as he drew her hand within his. “Margaret Grey is neither little nor ugly.” "’ comicbooks.com