The Argosy — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

98 Lady Valena. and received her anxious assurances that father would not be home for many an hour to come. Then he would have gone had not the wish seized him to try and inspire a little confidence in this forlorn, frightened-looking child, if child she were. ‘The stray shaft of light was caught and reflected on so many bright points: the shining oil- cloth on the table, the brass knobs of the fire-irons, the glass in the corner cupboard, and the little glinting rows of brass knobs in the horsehair-covered chairs: that it had made the gloom of the rest deeper, and he had not seen at first that another woman was sitting with her back to the window, over the fire in the high black arm- chair, huddled up, with knees and nose almost touching. She now rose, and hobbled off without taking notice of him. ‘Who is that?” he ventured to ask. ‘A neighbour—Mrs. Beltran—a very kind neighbour,” she answered, in a flutter, but speaking more freely: as shy people often do with one hearer only. It was no very difficult task that he had set himself, after all. When the first shock of confronting this formid- able stranger—and all strangers were more or less formidable to Elsie Paramount—had worn off, she began to find something curiously pleasant in the grave attention with which her timid little remarks were received, and a disposition growing on her to speak of herself and her interests to an extent that it was alarming to reflect on after- wards. She had actually talked to him about the old times when father was quite well off, before ‘‘ the firm” failed and ruined him. How the brothers and sisters were scattered, and only herself and Sampson left. Sampson was in an office, doing pretty well 7/zs time. The Vicar seemed to understand the doubtful inflection, and be sorry for her, and then he talked about himself and St. Fridolin’s. quite as if he thought her worth talking to—that was a comfort to remember. ‘She was so frail, so pretty, so delicate, and altogether incongruous —like a daisy in a street pavement, Eustace thought. He turned for a last look as he left the house, and caught a shy glance from be- hind her scarlet flowers. The great, heavy wooden shutter of the room overhead had half swung to, and, had he looked up there, he might have caught the searching gaze of another pair of eyes fixed on him with no good meaning, from the depths of the dark crevice. Ilsie was smiling to herself in a pleasant, vague musing, when the door opened softly and the “neighbour” re-entered. The little black shawl that had been huddled over her head and shoulders now hung on her arm, her step was light and springy, and her bent form erect, supple, full of lithe grace and strength. She looked at Elsie with a direct, expressionless gaze, her eyelids gradually closing till they left mere slits through which her eyes seemed to gleam with intensified brilliance. Her lips curved with a sugges- tion of mockery, and waited patiently for Elsie to speak first. The Beltrans, Elsie’s fellow-lodgers, were exceptions to every rule of life in Lavender Row. ‘They had lived there for nearly a year CORNIECMOOOKS.)