The Argosy — page 223: what you’re looking at

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

208 Our Philosopher. “You'll be marrying again, soon?” suggested a kind friend during the ensuing week. ‘One marriage is enough for one man in one life, and there’s no giving in marriage in the other,” replied Azy. He resumed his customary avocations with even more than his customary vigour. He had no one to interfere with him, so he taught, composed, and dug his garden vigorously, recovering his spirits as philosophically as he lost them. One day his scholars were much terrified by the apparition of Tisher, at whose disappearance they had rejoiced. ‘Look you there! I see her by there in the garden!” they said to one another, as they stood trembling at the school-house gate, and pointing to a figure that greatly resembled Tisher. The news spread that Tisher’s ghost had been seen, but it evolved shortly that the ghost was a scarecrow, dressed in her clothes, and placed by Azy in his garden. ‘True philosopher! He considered that in the garments she had left behind her a portion of her spirit remained, and they might frighten the crows as she had frightened him. But this produced an unpremeditated complication. Azy had been heard to say that he wished he had a likeness of Tisher, for ‘“‘ she was as fine an ’ooman as there was in Wales.” “Send you me her best clothes, and we'll see!” said clever Nadolig : and the clothes were sent. Photography had just found its way into the wilds, and an itinerant photographer had appeared at Trefavon. He was fabled then to do what the Spiritualists profess now actually to perform; so Nadolig sought him, furnished with Tisher’s best hat and gown, and accom- panied by his daughter. “Tak you me Tisher Cecrad. I'll be describing her face, and here’s her clothes,” he said authoritatively. The photographer explained that his art had not reached that stage of perfection as yet, and proposed that Nadolig’s daughter should sit instead. The clerk was not a man to be daunted by obstacles ; so, after a little reflection, he told his child to put on Tisher’s clothes. ‘Stand you her on a stool, and make her three times as big as she is, and maybe she’ll do,” he said pompously. The photographer obeyed to the best of his ability, and when Nadolig returned home with this remarkable representation in daguerrotype, even Azy exclaimed with everybody else : ‘“There’s wonderful! It’s Tisher when she was a girl. And just like Mary, Nadolig, too.” Nadolig formally presented it to Azy, who hung it up in a con- spicuous part of his kitchen, and was flattered to hear his friends say : ‘’'There’s slim and pretty Tisher was when she was young.” So Azy consoled himself with his photograph, his books, his school, and his philosophy, and was happier as widower than as Benedick, COMIC LOO KS, (EC)