The Argosy — page 175: what you’re looking at

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

162 Charles Austen’s Love. your wife? Did you not ask her to be?” Captain Trevor stared. “ Why no, certainly not,” said he readily; “I never thought of such a thing.” The farmer stared in turn. ‘Well, I don’t know,” he said in perplexity, ‘she picked up the notion somehow, and told her aunt of it.” ‘She must have been joking,” returned Captain Trevor, ‘‘T have jested and laughed with Jean, kissed her also now and then as a cousin—or indeed I may say as a child, for she’s not much more; but I assure you there has been nothing else.” ‘Well, well, Trevor, I dare say you are right; young girls are silly creatures,” concluded Mr. Deste ; ‘‘and I hope you'll come again next year.” So that was all. Captain Trevor said nothing to Jean before he went, though she expected it all day long, every minute of every hour. He openly called her “ My dear,” as one calls a child, and gave her a farewell kiss before them all. When he was gone, Mr. Deste took his niece to task, telling her in the presence of his wife that young maids in their teens should not be forward to pick up silly notions ; he repeated, word for word, the conversation with Captain Trevor, and perhaps, unconsciously, a little exaggerated the Captain’s cool indifference. “Thee hast done a pretty thing, girl, in flinging up young Austen,” commented Mrs. Deste, in the homely language she kept for scolding. ‘Thee has flung away the substance, trying to grasp the shadow, Jean. And, I would like to ask, what’s left to thee now ?” Nothing was left to her, except humiliation, burning shame, a lasting sense of disgrace. Before a week was over Jean Deste had quitted her uncle’s roof for that of the distant school where she was educated. She remained in it as teacher for two years ; then she became governess in a family, and went abroad with them. She had been a governess all this dreary time since, and was Jean Deste still. Mr. Austen took no more notice of her than if she had been dead: he had never sought her or enquired after her from that day to this. And now, look at the caprices of fate and fortune! Barely had these troubles been enacted, when Squire Austen’s eldest son died, and Charles became the heir. What did Miss Deste think of her doings then ? Leaning against the oak tree this October evening, Lucy Dennit recalled all this that had passed so many years ago—for it was known to her—and asked herself whether or not she should take this good man, who had had his sorrow and outlived it. She recalled her own painful past, she dwelt on the dreary present, she strove to look at the future. Grim and gaunt it all seemed to her. She was beyond her first girlhood, and care had made her old before her time. A young village flirt had said to her the other day, “ Oh, but you know you are quite an old maid already, Miss Dennit.” She saw nothing before her but lonely, unloved existence ; no near friend to smooth her path to the grave, to touch her hair witha caressing hand, or to press a kiss on her lips. GOmMmicbooks (E(0) m