The Argosy — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

My Eldest Sister. 59 Sir Francis smiles, but avoids a direct answer ; and soon that little witch Ella has decoyed him to her side again, and is carrying him off to be initiated into the mysteries of tennis. Our young neighbour, Edgar Holt, has dropped in (no infrequent occurrence) and I am called to make up the set. As I pass through the open window, I cast a glance back at Janet, sitting alone by her empty tea-cups. A pang seizes me as I notice how thin and worn— yes, there is no disguising it—how o/d our sister looks. The days go by, and still Sir Francis Ferrars lingers at Brookfield. Papa has from the first insisted on sending for his luggage ; his future plans seems vague, and he stays on, basking in the beauty of the summer days and spending much of his time in sharing our girlish amusements, to the no small displeasure of Edgar Holt. ‘What does an old buffer like that want with playing tennis ?” he one day grumbles, but Ella flashes round upon him indignantly. “Old! Sir Francis is only forty-two, and men who have served their country have some right to show traces of wear and tear.” And Edgar subsides, snubbed, and is supremely wretched for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I am growing very uneasy, for I have discovered, or fancied that I have discovered, that our guest’s presence is far from being a source of unmixed happiness to my eldest sister. She is irritable, depressed, yet nervously anxious to make his visit a pleasant one. Nay, strange to say, it is she, and not my father, who suggests that we should do our share in entertaining the neighbourhood generally, and exhibiting our lion to the best advantage. At last there comes a morning, hotter than all its predecessors, when even Ella has no energy to play tennis, ride, or go on the river, and she and I agree to spend our time quietly in a hammock we have privately slung for ourselves in the branches of the largest oak-tree in a remote quarter of the grounds. We have been there about an hour, when we are roused by the sound of voices almost immediately below our nest. He who hesitates is lost, and, while we are looking at each other in doubt as to the means of escape, the opportunity is gone, and we are compelled to become unwilling eaves-droppers or to descend with startling abruptness almost on the very heads of our eldest sister and Sir Francis Ferrars. As Janet stands there, with the chequered sun-rays falling on her face and casting golden light on her hair, I, for the first time, realise that there may be some likeness to Ella. It seems as if I had never observed before how delicately beautiful is the outline of Janet’s face, if the expression were less harassed and sad. Involuntarily I glance at Ella. She has raised her head and is gazing fixedly down. As I make some slight movement, she catches my hand. ‘We can’t,” she whispers almost fiercely ; ‘‘ they don’t see us—the yew-tree is between. We must see it out now.” comicbooks.com