The Argosy — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

6 The Village Blacksmith. However, he supposed something unforeseen had detained her, and seating himself on the doorstep he lighted his pipe and awaited her appearance. The long evening shadows were creeping over the fresh green fields on the opposite hill, on which a few houses were scattered wide apart. Low down the hill, on the other side of the valley, almost opposite Reuben’s cottage, nestled the picturesque convent, a beau- tiful building but a thorn in the side of many besides Reuben. Down in the valley ran the river, which, every here and there, widened into mill-pools. By the side of the pools stood the mills, whose monoto- nous rows of windows added to the sleepy restfulness of the village. A peaceful scene, calm and beautiful, but Reuben was too much accustomed to it to be struck by its beauty. His attention was arrested by the figure of a man who suddenly appeared in a lane below where Reuben was sitting, vaulted over a low stone wall which enclosed the Kectory grounds and made straight across them for the house. The blacksmith was wondering who it could be, when another figure coming hastily up the steep hill-side turned the current of his thoughts. This last was Janet, the object in which all Reuben’s earthly love, and most of his pride, were centred. He might well be proud of her, for she was beautiful. Tall, like her father, with the same blue eyes and golden hair, worn in thick coils round her head, a com- plexion which suggested lilies and roses, she was indeed a fair woman, comely to look upon. She had always been a thoughtful, reading girl, with singular quickness of apprehension, and her mind and education were far above her class. They had also taken great notice of her at the Rectory, and she had spent so many days with Miss Vera, partly as companion, partly as dependent, that she had unconsciously acquired a certain refinement of manner and bearing: a condition of things that was to bear fruit Mr. Ryot Tempest little dreamed of in the time to come. Her working at the mill was a matter of her own choice, and arose out of a certain pride and independence of character which was one of her most prominent traits: it never met with her father’s cordial sanction. But Janet insisted upon earning something towards her own maintenance; and Reuben Foreman argued that with her good looks it would not be long before Janet was wooed and married, and comfortably established in a home of her own. Though barely one-and-twenty, she already had many lovers ; but hitherto she had shown no wish to leave her father’s home, and dis- missed all her admirers with strict impartiality; all excepting Mark Brown, and for him she showed positive aversion, as Reuben well knew. She was flushed and panting when she reached the cottage. ‘Oh, father, Iam so sorry. I did not know it was so late! How must have dawdled.” conniclooolkks CO