The Argosy — page 204: what you’re looking at

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

192 Rupert's Choice. years old to go to school, returning for the holidays to be the pride of our hearts and the plague of our lives; bnght, handsome, merry Rupert, always in mischief, but irresistibly lovable ; devoted to his mother, affectionate to his sisters, and kindly courteous to me, though devising new schemes for our torment with each succeeding day ! I helped Mrs. Loraine to nurse her father through the long and tedious illness which preceded his death; together we watched over dear little Gerald; who died of injuries received by a fall from his pony at eight years old; and, sharper grief still, we saw our sweet, gentle Bertha slowly fade and droop, and die at sixteen, in spite of all that medical skill and the tenderest care could do. We left our darling at Mentone. The following year, Alice, being eighteen, was presented and _ intro- duced into society, and I left Helmsleigh. They wished me to remain there, but I seemed to be needed elsewhere ; for old Mr. and Mrs. Eliot, the father and mother of Colonel Eliot Loraine, required a com- panion and housekeeper now that all their daughters were married ; and they wete old and infirm, and unfit to be alone together. They knew me and were willing to have me, and I felt that I could be of more use there than at Helmsleigh. For seven years now I have lived with them very happily, but I can rarely leave them. Occasionally, however, I am able to manage a visit to Helmsleigh ; and I was there for a month this summer. Mrs. Loraine was now very much alone there, for Alice had married at nineteen, and in every way to her mother’s satisfaction, but had died the following year at the birth of her first child, which only survived her for a few hours. Rupert was now the only treasure left to his mother, and she idolised him, For his sake she struggled, even in early days, against her grief, and took care that Helmsleigh should continue to be a cheerful home for him, where his friends were always welcome. Rupert was very fond of her and very considerate for her ; but though he nominally lived with her he was a great deal away, either travelling or paying visits. Amusements of one kind or another tempted him in every direction, and he had no real duties at home ; for, though his father’s fortune made him quite independent, the property was his mother’s, and she had never abdicated her powers, though pleased to have his help in her rule. Rupert’s marriage had naturally been always anticipated as likely and desirable, but when it came it was inevitably an anxiety and a shock. He had returned home quite lately from visiting some friends in Devonshire, to announce to his mother that he had engaged himself to a Miss Herries, a young lady of whose existence Mrs. Loraine had never heard till that moment. She did not even know the Scott Parrys, the friends at whose house Rupert had met her. It was easily ascer- tained, however, that both Colonel and Mrs. Herries were people of ecomniclooolkks _ (CO)