The Argosy — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

Dr. Ball. 145 help them to be happy. And—” turning to him suddenly, with a quick, radiant smile—‘“‘you wz7// help us?” She spoke with an amount of assurance she was far from feeling, but determined to play her last card with a high courage. ‘You will go to the Bishop yourself, and plead for us. He respects you (it is the only sign of grace about him); he will listen to you, and you will bring us back word that you have succeeded. You will give us that bad old man’s blessing ; we shall fall upon your neck and embrace you, and then you will marry us.” “Stop—stop,” said the Doctor. ‘I daren’t do this thing. The Bishop’s face is set against Gerald, and ———” “Then you are to set your face against the Bishop’s and turn his in favour of Gerald. Yes, you must indeed! Oh! my dear god- father, you have never refused me anything in all my life; do not begin to do so now. ‘Tell him I am sick, dying * “But, my dear girl, I never saw you looking better.” ‘Never mind, I shall get sick; tell him, too, that Gerald is such a regular attendant at church, and that ‘: ‘I can’t, Dulcinea. All last spring, Sunday after Sunday, I missed his head in the Rectory pew, where he was supposed to sit.” All the pews in the church at Inchinabagga were so built that only the heads of the parishioners could be seen, staring over them as if impaled. “Perhaps he was there, but sitting low,” said Dulcinea, men- daciously. ‘““No. He wasn’t sitting there at all,” said the curate sorrowfully. “ He was up the South stream, at Owen’s farm, fishing for trout.” “Well, even if he was,” said Gerald’s sweetheart, boldly, ‘ surely there was some excuse for him. Sundays should not be good fishing days, and on every one of those you mention the trout were literally jumping out of the water, and crying to be caught! He told me so. Why, the Bishop himself would have gone fishing on such days.” **T must request, Dulcinea ———” “Well, if he wouldn’t, he would have been dying to go—it is all the same,” said Miss Vane, airily. ‘‘Come, you will go to the Bishop—you will do what you can for us, won’t you?” “What,” nervously, ‘‘am I to say if I do go. Mind, I have not promised.” «Say that Gerald is worthier of me than I am of Gerald. That will be a good beginning; be sure you say that. Make me out a most perverse girl, of whom you can get zo good > “Dulcinea,” said the Doctor, with mournful reproach, “in all these years have I failed to show you the graciousness of truth ?” “Oh! but what is the truth in comparison with Gerald!” said Miss Vane, with an impatient gesture of the right hand. Quite overwhelmed by this last proof of the uselessness of his ministry, Dr. Ball maintained a crushed silence. (CONMIE IOOKS (E©) m