The Argosy — page 177: what you’re looking at

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

152 The. Mysteries of Heron Dyke. would say on Tuesday. She had no intention of falling in love, either with him or with any other man; on that point she was firmly resolved. She and Maria Kettle had long ago agreed that they could be of more use in the world, of greater service to the poor, the sick, and the forlorn among their fellow creatures as single women than as married ones; and Ella, for her part, had no intention of letting any man carry her heart by storm. Yet, after making all these brave resolutions, here she was, wonder- ing and hesitating as to which dress she should wear, as she had never wondered or hesitated before ; and when the clock struck eleven she caught herself saying, ‘‘ In six more hours he will be here.” Then she jumped up quickly with a gesture of impatience. She was the slave of thoughts over which she seemed to have nocontrol. It was a slavery that to her proud spirit was intolerable. She could not read thismorning. Her piano appealed to her in vain. Her crewel work seemed the tamest of tame occupations. She put on her hat and scarf, and, calling to Turco, set off at a quick pace across the park. Perhaps the fresh bracing air that blew over the sand-hills would cool the fever of unrest that was in her veins. Once she said to herself, ‘‘] wish he had never come to Heron Dyke!” But next moment a proud look came into her face and she said, ‘‘ Why should I fear him more than any other ?” Ella Winter has hitherto been spoken of as though she were Mr. Denison’s niece: she was in reality his grand-niece, being the grand-daughter of an only sister, who had died early in her married life, leaving one son behind her. ‘This son, at the age of twenty-two, married a sister of Mrs. Carlyon, but his wedded life was of brief duration. Captain Winter and his wife both died of fever in the West Indies, leaving behind them Ella, their only child. Mrs. Carlyon, a widow and childless, would gladly have adopted the orphan niece who came to her under these sad circumstances, but Squire Denison would not hear of such a thing, He had a prior claim to the child, he said, and she must go to him and be brought up under his care. He had no children of his own, and never would have any: Ella was the youngest and last descendant of the elder branch of the family, and Heron Dyke and all that per- | tained to it should be hers in time to come; provided always that he, Gilbert Denison, should live to see his seventieth birthday. He had loved his sister Lavinia as much as it was in his nature to love anyone ; and her son, had he lived, would, in the due course of things, have been his heir. But he was dead, leaving behind him only this one poor little girl, ‘To Gilbert Denison it seemed that Providence had dealt very hardly by him in giving him no male heir to inherit the family honours. He himself would have married years ago had he anticipated such a result. For six hundred years the property had come down from male heir to male heir, but now at last the line of direct succession would ECORNIECLOOKS, (EO)