The Argosy — page 251: what you’re looking at

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

234 THE FABRIC OF A VISION. | ebaircehne but Edward and myself looked on our marriage as a misfortune. To be sure we were the persons most interested, and to us it seemed the most desirable thing in the world. My father and mother did not like the match from the first, though Edward had arranged to stay in Australia for two years, at any rate. Edward was not strong ; indeed he had come out for his health; and beyond the fact that his introductory letters were all that such things should be, we knew nothing of him. I knew more than the others, certainly ; for I knew that I should be happy with him anywhere, even in England, and that the dearest duty of my life would be to take a wife’s care of him. We had taken a house at Glenelg and there we were to live an ideal life, till Edward grew quite strong, when we were to go to England. Edward was an only son, and Mr. Norreys, his father, was rich ; so, as he said, our future was tolerably secure. So much for intentions. We had not been married a week when a telegram came to say that old Mr. Norreys was dead, and we left Adelaide by the next homeward-bound steamer. It was terrible for him. I had my own selfish trouble too, in| being so suddenly rooted up out of the old familiar soil of home love. But we were all in all to each other, the voyage did him a great deal of good, and my heartache was wearing itself out by the time we landed at Gravesend. Of London I did not have a cheerful experience. It was June when we got there, and the dirty old Babylon was as smoky, as hot, and altogether as unpleasant as I had everimagined it. Of its “sights” I saw none, except the dingy hotel sitting-room where I spent my days, while Edward was busy among lawyers in Lincoln’s Inn, or at the rooms in the Albany, where his father had died. I had nothing to do all day but to worry myself, and fancy that Edward was looking ill again, and consequently was more than glad when some cousins of his at Carlisle wrote and asked us to come down to visit them. Edward at first did not want to go, but when he saw it would please me, he consented. We left London on the first of July. It was a lovely morning. How delicious it was to get away into the clear country air, and receive my first glimpse of English country! It charmed me; but railway travelling always affects me in one way: before I can quite realise that I don’t want to talk, I fall asleep. I did so now. When I awoke, Edward was speaking : “Wake up, Mary,” he was saying. ‘ You're very tired and so am I. EOMIGIOOKS (E()