The Argosy — page 288: what you’re looking at

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

267 LR RS ot Pe ES eo a: a he ARCHIE’S LADYE-LOVE. IV. fo 4ARY JACOBS did not attend Tamston Church, but always went to a little country church nearer her own house. ‘This fact being known to me and communicated to Archie, I had not the pleasure of his company next morning, as he betook himself across the fields to the little square-towered, ivy-smothered building where Imogen might be expected to worship. He came back somewhat disappointed. She had been there, but so had Lady Anderton, and he had not been able to speak to her. They had stayed in their pew so long that he had to leave first, and wait about awkwardly in the churchyard; and when at last they passed him, a grave bow from her and a cold one from Lady Anderton were all that he obtained. After the vapprochement of yesterday afternoon, and the open love-making of the evening, he felt pushed off again to a distance, and all the ground seemed lost. I tried to show him that under such difficult circumstances matters could not go smoothly until they had had a thorough ex- planation, both with each other and with her authorities, and that it was impossible that she should defy her step-mother until she was absolutely engaged to him. He assented dubiously, and so I was drawn on to betray Lady Jacobs’s confidence (to which, after all, I know she would not in the least have objected), and tell him how far Imogen had already gone in resisting Lady Anderton for his sake. This cheered him up ; but I could see that as soon as she was out of sight, his mind set to work to exaggerate the force of the influences around her, and he lost faith in her power or determination to fight against them. Altogether, it was a rather uncomfortable Sunday, and my temper was not improved by the advent of Mrs. Minton and Lucilla, just as Archie and I were having a five o’clock cup of coffee. Sunday visiting is not a Tamston fashion—at least among the ladies; but they had made up a rubbishy pretext—I vow it was a pretext—of asking him to inquire at the terminus next morning about some parcel which had not been sent down. Suppressed exultation lurked in Lucilla’s frequent laugh, and whispered out of every flower on her mother’s bonnet. | ‘“] hope you brought Miss Moville back safely last night, Mr. Rintoul?” giggled Lucilla. “Quite safely, thank you,” Archie answered, nonchalantly. ‘There was no particular danger.” CONnNICHOOOKSs.EO