The Argosy — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

Charles Austen’s Love. 161 He came. It might be said he came, and saw, and conquered. A man of the world, he, of courtly manners. Jean Deste was dazzled. He admired her childish beauty, he paid her great attention; he walked with her, and sat with her, and sang with her, and he won her fancy if not her heart. Some words that he spoke, one day, in his heedlessness, she construed into an offer of marriage. She thought he had made it; he (afterwards) totally denied it, laughed at the very idea of it. ‘That was the notion she took up, however. He was a rich man with a fine estate: as his wife she should be (as she whispered to herself) a grand lady of the world; while as Mrs. Charles Austen she should be but a farm-house mistress. Not fora day did Jean hesitate. She wrote to Charles Austen a pretty little letter, full of penitence for what she was doing, and gave him up. Irrevocably. ‘There was no beating about the question, no hesitation. She had learnt to care for Captain Trevor, she said, and was about to marry him: and she knew that she should never have got along in a farm; she was not calculated for one; she felt that the sphere into which a union with Captain Trevor would raise her was her proper and fitting sphere ; the secret ambition of her heart had ever been to marry a man who could give her position and wealth. This letter reached Charles Austen the day after his return home. He had been away two months; and, though cured, was weak yet. Wounded as with a barbed arrow, he proceeded to Marsh Farm, and had a stormy interview with Jean. It did no good: she held to her decision. Hedemanded to see Captain Trevor, calling him sundry contemptuous names; but Captain Trevor had left the farm that morning to stay a few days with some acquaintances he had made, ignorant of the tempestuous weather he left behind him. Jean seek- ing to be just, in spite of her unworthy conduct, explained to Charles Austen that Captain Trevor did not merit blame: it had never been disclosed to him that she was an engaged girl; for aught he knew to the contrary, she had been free as air. Telling her that she was utterly unworthy an honest man’s love, and that he would never willingly look upon her again in life, Charles Austen went out from Marsh Farm and from Jean, shaking the dust off his shoes. The clouds looked bleak and bitter in the November sky : they were not as bitter as the young man’s heart. That was the ending, so far as he was concerned. For Jean it was even less satisfactory. After a week’s absence, Captain Trevor returned to the farm; but only to make preparations for his final departure. What was his hurry, Mr. Deste asked him. Nay, but he thought he was not in any hurry, the Captain answered, smiling pleasantly ; the two months that he had originally proposed to stay, were already expired. ‘ And what of Jean?” cried the farmer, who was a plain, honest, simple-natured man. ‘What of Jean?” repeated the Captain, “nothing, that I know of. Whatof her?” ‘Is she not going to be CEONMIE IO KS (E(©) m