The Argosy — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

176 A Secret of the Sea. happen so often in real life: events which would seem as if they must have their origin in some set purpose or prearranged design, but which are in reality due to the merest accident. “You did not expect to.see me here, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Olive with a smile, as she shook Jack’s hand about an hour after his aygval at Stammars. ‘““No, indeed,” said Jack. ‘It is quite an unexpected pleasure.” “When I saw you last, I had no idea whatever of coming here. Lady Dudgeon, knowing I was out of a situation, called on me some three days after your departure from Pembridge, and offered me the charge of her two daughters—a charge which I was glad to accept. When one has to work for one’s daily bread, it does not do to be idle for too long a time.” “‘T have been used to idleness —to comparative idleness, that is —for so long a time that I am afraid it will go rather against the grain to settle down to any daily occupation.” “ And yet it is their very rarity which makes the idle hours of a busy man so peculiarly sweet.” Then she turned the subject. ‘‘ Miss Lloyd is away visiting in Leicestershire, and will not be back for about a week.” This she said with her searching eyes bent full upon him, ‘So I have been told already,” said Jack, dnly: but he could not prevent a little tell-tale colour from mounting to his cheek. Nothing more was said at that time, nor was Miss Lloyd’s name mentioned again between them till after that young lady’s return. Jack was very eager that she should return. He chafed and fumed - at her absence, but why he should do so he could not have told any- one, unless it were that he thought he could have spent his time much more pleasantly and profitably to himself than in cataloguing the books, and writing the letters, of an unfledged country M.P. But having advanced so far in his enterprise, he was by no means minded to give it up. He would await the return of Eleanor Lloyd even though she were two months away instead of a single week. He had not yet decided as to what his line of action should be when he should meet her. All that he left to time and circumstances: at present he asked only that he might see this girl about whom so much had been told him, and towards whom he stood in a relation- ship so peculiar and uncommon. He was destined to see her sooner than he was aware of. Always a great walker, Jack found his greatest pleasure, since he had come down to Stammars, in long, solitary rambles along the pleasant Hertfordshire roads, and the more lonely the road, the better he was pleased. As he was posting along at the rate of four miles an hour one afternoon towards the end of January, swinging his walk- ing-stick, and watching the flying clouds, his ear was suddenly caught CORNICE OOS (GO)