The Argosy — page 326: what you’re looking at

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

Sabrina. 207 ~ “No, thank you. But will Sabrina come to me here, after she has had her milk ?” She looked vexed for a moment, then said: ‘‘I will stay now, and go for the milk after ; only be quick, Miles.” And she waited while I went on. I sat in the charcoal-burner’s hut, and drank milk and played with the black-eyed children in close white caps and wooden sabots, till the whole family must have been weary of me, but no Miles or Sabrina At last I sallied forth. In the meantime this is what went on in the little dell among the flowers and young green bracken. At least it is what I put together from the hints and allusions I afterwards picked up, and I believe it is tolerably correct. He did not ask her to marry him at once. He was, as I have said, a good young man, but he had his faults; and I reckoned it to him for a fault that he found it natural that she should love him, instead of doubting and trembling as a lover should. ‘To be sure I had given him to understand that he was dear to her, but then And then he had a tinge of that pharisaism which sits not ill on a very young man, but which Providence soon knocks out of him if he is worth anything. Here was a specimen of arrogance—the last time he ever indulged in it, I am happy to say. “Child, how could you refuse me before I asked you?” It was cruel of him, and she burst into tears and shivered with emotion. “Aunt Margery ” she began. “Yes; Aunt Margery told me you would not marry me if there were no one else in the world.” “T hate you, Miles; I am ashamed of you,” she flashed through her tears. ‘‘ How could you say that? [I hate you, Miles.” She was not going to play beggar-maid to his king Cophetua, and she was quite right too. He said nothing, and she began to move silently away. ‘Then after a pause, when her eyes were clear of the tears, she looked up at him as he walked beside her: there was a new look in his face, a hungry yearning touched with fear. “What is it? ” said she, startled. He fell down on his knees before her, and catching her hands buried his face in them. She tried to withdraw them. “‘T never really loved you till this moment! It is bitter, Sabrina! Have pity on me.” “What do you mean?” she asked, coldly. Poor soul; she was trying to prevent her tears from dropping on the bowed head, and her hands from trembling against his lips. “You are right to hate me,” he cried. “I have hurt you, and have turned your love away when you were learning to care for me.” At this moment he looked up, and her look fell downward into his like a flower thrown into a clear pool. That cleansing humility which COMICOOOKS. CO