The Argosy — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

60 My Eldest Sister. ‘Janet !” Sir Francis’s deep tones are speaking; and I get a glimpse of his face, and read in it a strange mixture of tenderness and resolution : ‘‘ You cannot think that after ten years of patience I am to be put off like this. I accepted your decree of banishment then. You had a right to love your father better than me, and perhaps you could not, as you said, leave him and the six children so recently motherless, But now all is changed. Your task is amply, nobly fulfilled. Those very children have grown up to take your place.” “God help me! They have indeed.” It is the sob of a broken heart that interrupts him, and ere he can speak again, the torrent of pent suffering breaks forth. ‘Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I am ignorant that I have grown old, and cross, and haggard, in these ten long years of wear and tear? You have kept your youth amid the stirring life you have led. A man is often young up to fifty. But at thirty-two, what an I but a soured, worn-out drudge? Ask the children, or”—with a bitter laugh—* look at Ella and me, side by side. I was like her once—in the old days when you were here.” “T know it.” There is a deep, tender power in his voice, which s:ems at once to soothe and master her. ‘I know it, and it is this that has made the child’s sweet face and ways so attractive to me.” Involuntarily I glance at Ella; there are tears in her pretty eyes, but she makes a brave effort to keep them back. ‘But for me there is but one woman in the world, and that is the Janet Trevelyan to whom ten years ago, under this very tree, my love was plighted. I am changed, too, sweetheart ; the years have not dealt with me so gently as you think—as these grey hairs testify—but my heart has never wavered in its truth to you.” She has turned from him, and is leaning her head against the rough bark of the tree. ‘Frank, Frank, do not tempt me,” she cries in stifled accents ; “ you will repent when it is too late.” But for all answer, he draws her to him with his gentle, irresistible force, and for an instant we catch sight of a face so radiant, so trans- formed, that we look at each other in wonderment. “Was it only happiness that was wanting ?” Ella murmurs, as arm- in-arm, every obstacle now swept away, the lovers pass trom under our tree. “Poor Janet; how selfish we have been to have ever thought her cross or cold!” And somehow the words comfort me, for I begin to perceive that the wound in my little sister's heart is only skin-deep, and I can, with no unkindness to her, give my full sympathy where soon it is so warmly claimed. For many things that have been mysteries to our childish minds are now made clear, and we are ready with open arms to meet the brother-in-law elect who seems to us as romantic as one of Arthur’s knights in his unswerving constancy. comicbooks.com