The Argosy — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

36 A Story of the Day. “ Ronald !” And in those words, spoken together, each seemed to tell the story of what these months of separation and anxiety had been; and in that moment Blanche felt repaid a thousand-fold for her noble sacrifice and for all her suffering, as she held their child up for its father’s first kiss. It was indeed one of those moments when this earth seems lit by a ray from Eden, by a foretaste of paradise! But, oh, may a merciful Heaven help those wives of our Soudan heroes, Burnaby, Earle, Eyre, Stewart, and others, for whom such a meeting never came. “You had him christened before you started, Blanche,” observed Ronald, as they were at length soberly sitting down. ‘Yes, dear. I should like to have waited for you ; but I could not bring him away without it.” ‘“Of course not. What have you named him ? ” ‘TI have named him,” she answered, smiling, ‘‘after my two greatest heroes: the names I thought worthiest to go together—‘ Ronald Gordon.’ ” He smiled. ‘ My child, you attach more honour to me than I deserve. But I am glad you have called the boy after that good and brave man.” “Oh, Ronald, if you could have brought him back!” she exclaimed. ‘It seems so piteous, his dying all alone, and being buried we know not where! I used to like to picture with what enthusiasm he would be received in England—what honours his Queen and country would lavish on him !” “True, my love,” answered Ronald, gravely, ‘it is most sad, most piteous. But for our comfort let us remember that he was one who hated and shrank from all earthly honours, and we cannot doubt that ere now he has been amply rewarded for his ‘faithfulness unto death;’ and that, though his body lies we know not where in the lonely desert, yet that his grand, unselfish soul is resting after his untiring toil.” ‘*+ Where loyal hearts and true stand ever in the light, All rapture through and through, in God's most holy sight,’ "’ breathed Mrs. Douglas. There was silence between them for a few minutes, and then Ronald spoke in a lighter tone. ‘‘Tf our child had been a girl, Blanche, and you had called it Blanche Gordon, I think it would have been a worthier coupling of names than the other is.” She blushed with mingled pleasure and humility. ‘Ronald, for shame! How can you compare me, your foolish little wife, to General Gordon! Why I am afraid of everything, from a big dog to a black beetle.” “T compare you for this reason, Blanche: that, as I take it, the key note to all Gordon’s heroism was his complete self-abnegation ; COMIC OOlKS.CO