The Argosy — page 235: what you’re looking at

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

MY SATURDAYS. HOW SHE ATONED, Le WAS in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor one week-day afternoon. I had not been at service there before, and I did not know how to obtain a seat at the side, under the Knights’ stalls ; so I modestly sat me down on one of the benches in the aisle. The side seats were occupied by a sprinkling of ladies, evidently habituées; and a few gentlemen sat in the stalls above. As I ran a glance along the rows, I was suddenly caught and stopped by a pair of eyes. Eyes, and no more: the high bench prevented my seeing the face below; the eyes themselves would let me see nothing above. Such eyes! large, dark enough to seem black —but with a depth in them which black eyes never have, underlined with purple shades, and bordered with the light, sad tracings that tell tales. Not beautiful eyes, at all, having no charm of shape or setting ; but weary, melancholy, yearning eyes. Eyes to beset your thoughts by day, and haunt your dreams by night. Eyes that had wept com- fortlessly over some great sorrow; eyes that ached to pierce some unfathomable mystery. They met my own, but I saw that they took no note of me. I was not what they sought, and they cared for nothing else. ‘‘ What ave theyseen?” I wondered, with a shiver ; ‘‘and oh! what are they waiting to see?” Presently the service began, and we all stood up. ‘Then I saw that the eyes belonged to a woman still young, though not a girl. There was nothing beautiful or striking about the rest of her face, but she was evidently a lady ; and indeed I soon perceived that she was with some acquaintances of mine who lived in the neighbourhood. { tried hard not to stare at her, and to keep both my own eyes and my attention fixed on my book; but hers were too much for me, and I found myself constantly looking at her again, in a fascinated sort of way. I was glad when the service ended, and then, of course, the first thing I did was to join her companions in the court outside, and be introduced to her. It was very ridiculous—a woman of my age to be caught by a pair of dark eyes, like a boy of eighteen; but I could not help it. It was not that I thought her particularly attractive, for [ did not ; but she was a mystery, and I must know something of her. In time I came to know something about her: I change the preposition, for her real self—whatever it was—only looked out veiled through those wonderful eyes, and I was as far from solving the mystery as I had been the first day I saw her. Her name was Lena Graham, and she had no near relations living. She had a small Gomicbooksnco m