The Argosy — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

EE EE EE EOEIEESA ES Se SSS Le 164 A Secret of the Sea. I you I should certainly accept it,” Olive felt that she was not at liberty to do otherwise—not at liberty to live an idle life any longer. She had always given her aunt to understand that she was merely taking a few weeks’ rest before looking out for another situation : here was an excellent situation ready to her hand: how was it possible that she should refuse it ? And yet—and yet no one but herself knew how bitter it was to her to have to quit that roof: no one but herself knew how infinitely sweet to her had been those few weeks of sojourn with her cousin and her aunt! She had loved Matthew Kelvin with an undivided love from the time when, as girl and boy, they had played together. It was a love that had grown with her growth and had rooted itself more firmly in her heart with each passing year. She was clearsighted enough to know that never since the time of that brief, romantic episode at Redcar, when she had had him all to herself fora blissful fortnight, had Matthew Kelvin felt for her anything warmer than a mere cousinly, or, at the most, a quiet, brotherly affection. She was sufficiently versed in worldly knowledge to be aware that the chances that she, a poor governess, neither very young nor very handsome, should ever become the wife of her ambitious, well-to-do cousin were about as remote as it was pos- sible for them to be. And yet, for all that, a dim, faint hope had always held possession of her heart—so dim and so faint that she herself seemed to be hardly aware of its existence—that among the unknown chances and changes of the future—that out of the involvement and evolution of the great unrehearsed drama of life, with its unforeseen exits and entrances, such a happy climax might somehow—she could not tell how—be brought about. She had got into the way of looking upon her cousin as a man not likely to marry. If this view of his character struck the foundation from her own hopes, it seemed to pre- clude fear from any other quarter. When, therefore, Matthew told her the story of his love for, and rejection by, Eleanor Lloyd, it came upon her with all the force of an astounding revelation. Happily there seemed no likelihood of Miss Lloyd altering her determination not to accept Mr. Kelvin ; therefore, as far as she—Olive—wa’ concerned, she would not look upon the campaign as entirely lost even now. Many a hus- band has been won through his rejection bya rival. Men at such times are prone to seek the first pleasant shelter that offers itself to them. They want to lie quiet and heal them of their wounds ; and there are plenty of women in the world ready to act the part of physician to the wounds inflicted by azother, provided only that the wounded knight will agree to wear no other gage than theirs in time to come. Such a physician would Olive gladly have become, rather than lose her knight, if he would but have consented to such a method of treat- ment. But Mr. Kelvin was no soft-hearted swain who thinks the world sno longer good for anything because a certain pair of white arms COMMIEOOKS (GO)