Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

7 by Chapin Howard Auther ef “Next Deer te Chastina.” CHAPTER I. A CLERICAL DILEMMA. . EN the knocker sounded at the ) toward six o’clock the Rev. Arthur Grant himself went to the door. He kept a finger in the volume he was reading, but he hid his pipe behind a bowl of roses on the hall table, for it was still one of his delusions that none of his parishoners knew he smoked. | At sight of the couple awaiting him on the door-step the smile of welcome in his eyes changed to a look of perplexity. Nathan Swain was the rich man of his con- gregation. Stern-featured, erect; fifty-five or more, with crisp-curling, grayish hair he carried himself arrogantly. By his side stood Flora Winslow, a gitl of twenty. She had been a child when the minister had come into the neighborhood and during the years of his pastorate she had grown up to be the village beauty. Her blue eyes were raised:to his now for a moment and then lowered swiftly, but under the droop- ing brim of her hat he had a glimpse of pale cheeks and tremulous lips. The surprise which the minister felt at sight of his callers showed itself in his manner. He stammered over his words of greeting.- Then drawing back, he indicated with a gesture his study, which was at the front of the house on the west side of the. hall. The late afternoon sunlight stream- ing through the open windows revealed it 297 parsonage one summer afternoon © to be a room pleasant and shabby, like its owner. <A faint cloud of tobacco-smoke still hung above the chair in which he had been sitting. Oo , Nathan Swain placed his hat precisely on the hall table as he followed Flora across the threshold. Still without speaking he moved over to the study fireplace, feeling in the inner pocket of his coat, and then swung suddenly about, holding out a folded paper. ‘Here is the license, Grant,’ he said. ‘“ When you have looked it over, I presume you can marry us at once.” The minister placed a chair for Flora without answering. Then he took the paper and unfolded it slowly. He was trying to give himself time to recover from his dis- may. In this remote country parish it was seldom that the unexpected must be dealt with. - He stood staring at the license in his hand. Nathan Swain was fifty-seven—that was about what he had guessed him: Flora was nineteen—a year younger than he had thought. She was marrying, he felt sure, without her mother’s knowledge, yet for all that she was of age and there was little he could say. He pretended to read the license through a second time more carefully. It was so still in the room that he could hear outside the open windows the hum of bees in the rose-bushes and the occasional click of Joel Benton’s sickle as he trimmed the grass along the edges of the path. Joel’s back looked bent like that of an old man, COLM Goo (CO ww