The Argosy — page 367: what you’re looking at

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

Sabrina. 205 about them,” returned Sabrina. ‘‘I should say too much perhaps, for I have eaten the apple that ‘True Thomas’ refused, I think,” with an unsteady little laugh. I will here confess that I had fallen in love, on the farther side of middle age, not with any masculine person, but with Sabrina Grace. I shall never forget the first time I saw her. I was reading Mrs. Browning’s poem, ‘ Caterina to Camcens,’ when Margery brought her to my room ; I had not seen her before, for she had been away on a visit. I lifted my head from the line, ‘sweetest eyes were ever seen,’ and contradicted Mrs. Browning mentally as I looked into those before me ; grey, centering into black, essence of sunlight and moon- light and all things ethereal. I loved them from that moment. Yes, she was lovely in spite of her sunburnt face; not with a regular loveliness, but with something beautifully imperfect. It vexed me to see her worried by the boys, to hear their rude jests and taunts, and I thought out a plan which I now proposed to her: that she should come and live with me in Paris, and give lessons. She was delighted, for she was fond of me. “Do you really mean it? Oh, how nice,” and she clapped her hands. ‘There was something childish about Sabrina, which I did not dislike. “Think well before you decide,” I said. “It is a hard life. You must be out early and late, in all weathers.” “ But I am strong,” she said. Then in a changed voice: * Aunt Margery will not like it.” I knew that, but I promised to settle it with John. By this time the tide of darkness was full and the stars were scattered over the sky; so we walked slowly towards the house, a model on a small scale of an English country house, with its smooth lawn, from which the buttercups and daisies had been ruthlessly banished. It sloped down to a dimpling brook, which flowed with a hushed purr in the darkness. I thought of the waters of Shiloah, that go softly. Such meditations—indeed any meditations—were impossible during the day in that neighbourhood: for did not crooked Pins dance in its waters, and dirt pies soil its clearness from morn ve eve, while a troop of urchins sported like juvenile Satyrs on its rink ? The water slid along, and my thoughts flowed on through the years to come, wherein the girl by my side should be as a daughter to a playing Ruth to my Naomi, with no interrupting Boaz, I oped. Margery’s voice cleft the silence like the thin edge of a wedge. “ Patience, where are you? Oh, here you are! Will you come in to supper. Oh! Sabrina, I didn’t see you ”—this in a tone of extreme displeasure. ‘What were the dear boys doing that their papa should send them to bed?” she added. I replied: “Your dear boys were behaving like savages, Margery. CORnICclooo SS (GO) mn