The Argosy — page 252: what you’re looking at

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

The Fabnc of a Vision. 235 We're coming to a very pretty place, and I mean to get out here and stay till to-morrow. You'll be done up before we get to Carlisle, if we push on to-day.” ‘“What nonsense,” I returned, instinctively putting my hair to rights, as a woman always does when she wakes up after a travelling nap. ‘I always sleep in trains. You don’t know all my bad ways yet.” ‘TI know your way of making yourself a willing martyr to other people’s plans,” laughed Edward ; “ but I want to stop here, if you'll permit it. In fact: I can’t go on. —_The noise of this train phakes my head all to pieces.” “Don’t you think,” I ventured, ‘‘as we’ve got the tickets—and they expect us 5 ‘Oh, hang the tickets,” laughed my husband, beginning to get down hat-box, rugs and bags, from the netting overhead. “I’ve a strong fancy for seeing this place again—an overwhelming fancy for your see- ing it. My dear Mary, I always have my own way—you know that.” It was quite true. His own way was generally as good a way as any other, I must admit, and Calverley—the place we stopped at— proved quite as pretty as he said it was. Certainly there was a factory at one end of the little town, but it did not spoil anything of the pic- turesqueness of the place. Only the river that ran through was not clear and bright as rivers should be, but dark and foul—and its very foam, where its path was made difficult with stones, was not white but yellow. The factory itself was not sade It was large and white; not one dig block, but a number of scattered buildings grouped irregularly round a big reservoir. ‘This was walled round, and the strip of earth between wall and water was covered with long grass, aflame with great scarlet poppies. In the middle of the water was an island, just big enough to support a large pigeon cote, where the grey and brown and white birds flew in and out all day long, circling over the glassy water tll it, like the air, seemed alive with the white shimmer of their wings. There was a wooded hill behind the ‘‘works,” and to the left stretched the slate roofs of the town, under whose stone bridge the river flowed tumultuously. There was nothing like this near Adelaide. The novelty of it all was bewildering. I saw so much, and heard so much during the afternoon, that I was fit for nothing in the evening but to lie on a very hard sofa trying to read an oid railway novel. Edward said he would take a turn with a cigar—and I had a very dull time of it indeed. It was a lovely evening. I could not wonder that Edward stayed out to enjoy it. But when the sun had gone redly down, when the gold and crimson after-glow had faded to faintest primrose and coral, and when at last the moon showed clearly in the deepening bite of the sky, I did think it was time he came back. It was half-past ten when he did come. * All in the dark?” he asked. ‘Why didn’t you ring for lights?” conmicaooKks (SO