The Argosy — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

Gwen. 15 insisted, looking back at him from over her shoulder as she went oft to her own room. ‘I am famished for want of my tea, and I won't begin till you come.” A very cheerful tea-drinking was that in Mrs. Ellis’s pretty draw- ing-room on this bright afternoon. Gwen’s spirits were contagious, and Mr. Dallas threw off for the time all dreary forecastings of the future, which looked so overpoweringly dark to him, in the glow of the present sunshine. For the time, however, he would bask in the sunshine and be thankful for it, he resolved, as he sat in a low chair by Gwen’s tea-table, and listened to her eager flow of talk and was waited upon by her dainty fingers. They were still chatting over their tea on the old easy footing of tutor and pupil, discussing Gwen’s conquest of her difficulties, the books she had been reading, and the new ideas that were just now uppermost in her busy brain, when Dr. and Mrs. Ellis returned. After the first startled queries as to her sudden appearance had been satisfactorily answered, and the first warm greetings exchanged, Dr. Ellis turned to Mr. Dallas and, holding out a letter, said : ““This came for you by the afternoon post, Dallas, together with Gwen’s announcement of her coming home. I hardly know whether to wish you tidings of success in it or not.” Mr. Dallas took the letter silently, and Gwen watched his face curiously as he read. VIL. : “WELL, what news?” asked Dr. Ellis, cheerily, as Mr. Dallas bent his knitted brows over his letter. ‘ You don’t look greatly charmed.” “And yet I have gained the appointment,” replied Mr. Dallas, handing Dr. Ellis the letter with a very rueful face. “What appointment ?” asked Gwen, looking startled. “‘ The Head-Mastership of the Grammar School at G——,” replied her father. ‘And I must say he is an ungrateful fellow to be so little pleased at the handsome way in which the important post is offered to him. May Gwen see the letter, Dallas? She will be pleased at her tutor’s success.” “Certainly, if she cares to read it,” replied Mr. Dallas, in a tone of assumed indifference. Gwen read, with glowing cheeks and kindling eyes, the warm terms of appreciation in which the appointment was offered to her tutor ; but she handed him back the letter with an indifference as studied as his own, saying some formal words of congratulation as she did so. All the girlish gaiety of a few minutes before seemed suddenly ex- changed for the dignified reserve of a grown-up young lady; nor did she unbend again whilst Mr. Dallas was in the room. He could not understand her quick transition of manner towards himself, and pondered over it more deeply than he had ever pondered any abstruse problem of mathematics. And Gwen maintained this reserve during comicbooks.com