The Argosy — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

112 Gwen. ‘T am not sure but that it would be a good plan, my child. You are really grown up now, and two years of school-life might not be amiss. I must talk to your father about it.” “Then Mr. Dallas’s going has something to do with me! Oh, mother, how can J have sent him away?” exclaimed the girl, in such evident distress that her mother felt sorely tempted to sooth her hurt feelings with some glimmer of the truth ; but all she allowed her- self to say was : “‘Mr. Dallas has only too high an opinion of you, child. I hope you won't forfeit it by interfering unduly in his affairs.” And this combined encouragement and rebuke effectively silenced Gwen. VI. It was no slight sacrifice which Gwen made in volunteering to go to a boarding-school, and although she had never felt less like a heroine than as she settled herself into a corner of the railway carriage, yet, perhaps, she had never been nearer acting a heroic part. For the idea had been taken up by Dr. Ellis as a good one, and in a few days the whole matter had been arranged. As she gazed listlessly at the peaceful meadows from her carriage corner, looking so smiling in the afternoon sunshine, a great longing came over her to be back in her beloved den, with the cheery sounds of school-life around her, and the familiar tones of her tutor’s voice recalling her wandering thoughts to those “ odious figures.” But then a revulsion came suddenly over her, she brushed away the tears, and threw her head with a gesture of defiance, as she said to herself : ‘*T will work hard and conquer them yet. He shall respect me at least, and not find all his patient labour thrown away.” And Gwen kept her resolve, and worked so well during the three years of school-life that followed, that she was able to go in for and pass the Oxford Local Examinations, with credit to herself and to her school, which became in time quite proud of her, as one of its most hopeful pupils. Great was the pleasure which her father’s delight in her successes gave her, but the secret ambition of her heart re- mained unsatisfied. Something withheld her from mentioning Mr. Dallas’s name in her letters home, and after her father’s intimation in his first note to her that Mr. Dallas had kindly consented to stay on, his name had been conspicuous only by its absence. Nor had she any chance of personally testing his interest in her successes, as Miss Metcalfe always arranged for her return home just a day after the college break-up, and eagerly as she looked for her tutor’s familiar figure as her cab drove up to her father’s door, it was always in vain. ‘ST believe he must do it on purpose, and I call it rather unkind, when I have really been trying so hard to do him credit at last,” she would say to herself with a sigh. comicbooks.com