The Argosy — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

72 A MODERN FATIMA. {? had been no easy matter for Alick Rogers to win the love of Audrey Morrison. There was, apparently, no reason why he should have had any difficulty over his courting. Audrey had never loved anyone else, and Rogers was a tall, well-made man of about thirty; sufficiently good- looking to pass in a crowd, sufficiently gentle mannered not to repel any woman, and sufficiently manly to attract ane : he was not wealthy, but he had enough means to marry comfortably on, and he wasa gen- tleman by birth and education. But there was a certain amount of reserve about him, there were a few oddities of manner and of tem- perament, which Audrey could not easily forget or forgive. She was the only child of the Squire of Middleburgh, and, as such, had been spoiled and petted from her childhood, so that even her sweet, sunny nature became more or less capricious and wayward: whilst her per- sonal beauty taught the girl, as she grew up, that her power extended beyond the home circle, and that wherever she chose she could rule and be served. However, she never cared for anyone except for Alick Rogers : and though she teased him and played with him in the barbarous manner of a cat with a mouse, she loved him all the time; and at last she let him knowit. And on the first of May, not many Mays ago, they were married amid great rejoicings and festivities, and Rogers carried off his much-loved bride to his own home in the suburbs of London. She was then only twenty-one. Audrey grumbled at the house a little, when she found that, although he had told her exactly what it was like, it resembled his description of it and not her own imagination. It was a “villa residence” of the larger kind, detached, and standing in a good- sized garden, with a lawn-tennis ground and conservatory. She grumbled, too, at its situation at the corner of three quiet roads, with nothing but similar villa houses for miles around. But in spite of her murmurings, Audrey was a very sprightly young woman, and she began life in the highest spirits, dearly loving her husband and impli- citly trusting him. She was a giil of some depth of feeling, though apparently so careless, and when she gave herself to Alick she knew that her love for him was the keystone of her life. Her husband, a solicitor, used to go up to town at 9.30 every morning. Audrey found the days rather long, for he never came home till nearly seven, and she had nothing to occupy her time with, except such amusements as she could make for herself and the visits of friends. These latter were numerous ; for Rogers had lived for a long while at L—-—, and everybody was glad to know so attractive a woman as his young wife. ECORNICIOOKS. EO) m