The Argosy — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

Selina Radchiffe's Home. 43 A spasm of pain rose in his throat. She took his hands between her own feeble ones, “Don’t grieve, Francis ; don’t grieve forme! Remember what my life has been.” He did remember it. He remembered also the answer Duffham gave when he haa inquired what malady it was his mother was dying of. ** A broken heart.” ‘Don’t forget, Francis—never forget—that it is a journey we must ome on, sooner or later.” “An uncertain and unknown journey at the best!” he said. “ You have no fear of it?” “Fear! No, but I had once.” She spoke the words in a low, sweet tone, and pointed with a smile to the book that still lay open on the table. Francis’s eyes fell on the page. ‘* When death is drawing near, And thy heart shrinks with fear, And thy limbs fail, Then raise thy hands and pray To Him who cheers the way Through the dark vale. ** Seest thou the eastern dawn ? Hears’t thou, in the red morn, The angel’s song? Oh ! lift thy drooping head, Thou who in gloom and dread Hast lain so long. ** Death comes to set thee free ; Oh! meet him cheerily, As thy true friend ; And all thy fears shall cease, And in eternal peace Thy penance end.” Francis sat very still, struggling a little with that lump in his throat. She leaned forward, and let her head rest upon him, just as she had done the other day when he first came in. His emotion broke loose then. “Oh, mother, what shall I do without you?” “You will have God,” she whispered. | Still all the morning she kept up well ; talking of this, talking of that, saying how much of late the verses, just quoted, had floated in her mind and become a reality to her; showing ‘Holt a slit that had appeared in the table-cover and needed darning telling Francis his pocket-handkerchiefs looked yellow and should be bleached. It might have been thought she was only going out to tea at Church Dykely, instead of entering on the other journey she had told of. COnniclooolkks (SO) an