The Argosy — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

22 The Village Blacksmith. Mr. Ryot Tempest, accompanied by his admiring wife and much admired—ahem !—daughter, is about to proceed to Avranches next month ; and contrary to his usual custom on similar occasions, will stay at the hotel instead of taking a furnished house. The vista of lovely possibilities this charming prospect offers, only a rich imagina- tion like my own could suggest; I may meet my fate there. Who knows ?” ‘*T pity the fate,” said Rex, with fraternal frankness. ‘Good-bye, Norah. I'll come in again on my way home; for what with your steam and Rex’s flattery and smoke, I feel suffocated. My fate shall abandon smoking when he meets me, if it is one of his vices.” The laundry-door closed upon this speech, and after she had showered comfits on the little Canters amidst shouts of laughter, a sudden lull told that Vera had departed. ‘‘ Bless her pretty face! Now, Master Rex, what I want to tell you is this—though as you are going away almost as soon as IJ am, I don’t know that it is much good; but it troubles me, so I must tell someone. Miss Vera sometimes walks in her sleep. As a child she frequently did, but she has never done it since we came here, so far as I know; and now that I am going away I feel as if someone ought to be told.” ‘Don’t my parents know, then ?” “No. Poor Madame would never sleep a wink in peace if she knew it; and as for Mr. Tempest he is fussy enough now, and keeps the poor child shut up like a nun; if he knew that, I don’t know what steps he would not take to prevent an accident—put her into a strait-waistcoat, perhaps. So I never told either of them. And if I had not been going away from Woodford I should not have men- tioned it to you. So long as the child is well and happy there is no fear of her doing it ; but if any trouble came to her she might do it again though she appears to have outgrown it. What do you think, Master Rex: shall I mention it to anyone before I go?” ‘“‘ No,” said Rex, who was thinking more of his own affairs than of Vera. “If she has not done it for all these years, I should not think there is any danger.” Norah was rather doubtful about the wisdom of this advice. But she was one of those people who seldom ask advice, and never act upon it even when they do, unless it coincides with their own pre- conceived notions, as was the case in the present instance; for, except Mr. Ryot Tempest himself, she knew no one to whom she could confide the secret of Vera’s somnambulism. So she left Wood- ford without saying anything more about it, little thinking what vital consequences her silence entailed upon more than one person con- nected with this history. (To be continued.) conniclooolkks CO