The Argosy — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

160 Lottie’s “Yes.” this, but if he should be led to throw over a life’s love without a struggle, even you must be convinced that he was worthless. It happened just as I desired, but he was not firm enough to carry it through. He is far more honest than I thought, and cannot disguise that he has come very nearly to hating me, and that he is truly, seriously, distractedly in love with you.” | “ Lottie! Lottie! what is it you mean ?” ‘‘T was in hopes you might have been won by a better man—a man that it would be a privilege to follow to the ends of the earth! but my plans have failed; I meant to have made a victim of myself for the good of you all: I have ‘steered out in mid-sea by guidance of the stars,’ so shipwreck was to be expected!” ‘ Dear, dear Lottie! How I have misunderstood you!” Yes, indeed! and now what is to be done? Who is going to disentangle the skein, and to explain to Harry Davenant what Lottie Craven meant when she said “‘ Yes ”’? —Wi@Re CRS FIRST TIME AT CHURCH, JusT three years old ! and without a thought of all the rites and creeds ; Just three years old! and unconscious quite of the soul’s unbounded needs; Content it should draw what life it may from the food on which it feeds. Just three years old! and brought to church to sit in the narrow pew, And wonder at all the mysteries that rise before her view— The noiseless movement down the aisle ; the crowd, and the faces new; The organ that peals out magic strains, though hidden from the sight ; The arches, and windows of pictured glass that tow’r to such a height ; The eagle that bears the Bible up; the choir in their robes of white. To wonder and watch with childish awe that is more than mere surprise, That seems to catch in the tones of earth some echo of the skies, And reflects itself in the tender face, in the solemn, wide grey eyes, Out of whose cloudless, dewy depths glimmers the earliest ray Of the awak’ning love, whose dawn heralds a fuller day, When, though the shadows may darker he, the mists will melt away— When the types shall find their antitypes, and the mysteries be made clear, Though the deeper mysteries beyond will gather yet more near, Awaiting a new and brighter dawn e’er they shall disappear. Just three years old! and brought to church, though she can take no share In the praises rising to God’s high Throne, in confession or earnest pray’ ; Brought but to learn the reverence due to the awful Presence there. Just three years old ! with folded hands, she kneels when the others kneel ; And surely the blessing which falls on them may also gently steal Over the innocent baby head, bent down in mute appeal. EMMA RHODES, ECORNICLOOKS EC) m