The Argosy — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

62 Margaret's Grave. she felt so well that she strolled into the road, leaving word with the landlady, who sat at the inn door shelling peas, that if Monsieur came in she had gone towards the town. “But I daresay I shall meet him,” thought Leslie. “I wonder whereabouts the coach-mender’s place is? Richard said it was no better than a shed.” The sun was shining in the sky ; but some white fleecy clouds broke its heat. The town was close at hand, Mrs. Ensor found: and she was soon at the entrance of the first street. All in a moment she caught sight of her husband, at a distance, apparently bargaining with a little flower-girl, As she began to quicken her pace to catch him, he disappeared. “ Flowers, lady?” asked the child, meeting her, and holding up the basket; in which roses and heartseases were respectively tied up in bunches. “They are very fair.” “So they are,” said Leslie, who was a dear lover of flowers. ‘But do you find much sale for them, my child? I should have thought not : every house seems to have its own flowers here.” “Not those houses in the street further on, lady. And I sell them to the travellers. One or other of the two inns has often voyagers descending at it.” The child held up two of the bouquets as she spoke, so that the light might shine on them, and their perfume be brought nearer to the lady. Leslie took both in her hand. “T wonder, she said,” with a dreamy smile,“ which is the prettier of the two?” “The roses are as sweet as an angel’s breath,” the child answered, almost in a whisper ; “but the purple pansies are sweeter. They are like your eyes, dear lady.” Leslie hesitated, quite ready to take both, but that a thought had occurred to her. “TI fancied I saw a gentleman buying some of you. Which did he take?” “He took violets, lady.” “ Violets?” The child turned up a corner of the thin white cloth that covered the bottom of the basket, and displayed two or three bunches of violets. “The time is nearly over for them, and they are getting scarce, lady,” she said. “We keep them for the cemetery.” “‘What—to put upon the graves there?” “Yes, it is our custom at Guerre. Few people wear violets. They spare them all for their dead lovers who are lying in the cold earth.” “And yet the gentleman bought violets, you say,” said Leslie, smiling. “T think he has a dead one lying there also, lady, for he turned |off comicbooks.com