The Argosy — page 344: what you’re looking at

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

322 Anne Hereford. 2 ‘* Sorry for having—having married as vou did ?” “Ay, Iam. Those rebellious marriages never bring luck. They can't, you know; only, girls’are so thoughtless and stupid. JI made my own bed, and must hie on it: it is not so bad as it might have been: but—of course, all that’s left is to make the best of it. Alfred says we should get on better if we had children. I say we should not. And there, in the distance, you see the chimneys of Chandos. Look, Anne !” She was wayward in her moods ; wayward to me as to others. Some- times, during our past journey, she would be distantly polite, calling me ‘‘ Miss Hereford :” the next moment open and cordial as ever she had been at school. That she had thrown herself away in a worldly point of view, marrying as she did, was indisputable, and Emily Chandos was not one to forget it. Chandos was a long, {low, red brick house, with gables and turrets to its two end wings, and a small turret in the middle, which gave it a somewhat gothic appearance. It was but two stories high, and struck me as looking low, not elevated, perhaps partly from its length. No steps ascended to the house; the lower rooms were on a level with the ground outside. It was a sort of double house; the servants’ rooms, kitchens, and chambers, all looking to the back, where there was a separate entrance. Extensive grounds lay around it, but they were so crowded with trees, except just close to the house, as to impart a weird- like, gloomy appearance; they completely shut Chandos House from the view of the world beyond, and the beyond world from the view of Chandos. A pretty trellised portico was at the entrance, jessamine, roses, and clematis entwined themselves round it, extending even to the windows on cither hand. Before the carriage had well stopped, a gen- tleman rode up on horseback, followed by a groom. He threw himself from his horse, and came to the carriage-door. “ Back just in time to receive you, Emily. How are you, my dear Pp” She jumped lightly from the carriage, and he was turning away with her when he saw me. His look of intense surprise was curious to behold, and he stopped in hesitation. Emily spoke: hertone a shghting one, almost disparaging. “Itis only my companion. Would you believe it, Harry, Alfred took a prudent fit, and would not suffer me to travel alone? So I engaged Miss Hereford: she was in questiof a situation; and we knew each other in days gone by.” . He assisted me from the ‘carriage. It was the same fine man I had seen some years before at Mademoiselle Barlieu’s ; the same pale coun- tenance, with its delicate features and rather sad expression ; the same sweet voice. He then gave his arm to his sister, and I followed them to the sitting-room. They called it the oak parlour ; a large, square room, somewhat dark, its colours harmoniously blending, and its win- COMIC OOOKS. EO mn _