The Argosy — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

122 Mary Silver. Yes, he must love her. She knew it by a thousand little tokens ; tender shades of manner, caressing tones of voice, smiles such as he never gave elsewhere. ‘Trifles, light as air,” all of them, but quickly read and interpreted by wits that are sharpened by love. Mary was right, the evidences of love are more often found in these intangible things than in spoken words. Frank didlove her. Thus, throughout the service, and as she left the church and walked home after it, her whole heart seemed glowing with a sweet, radiant light. And as she went on later to the School for the first day of opening term, she said to herself: ‘‘I shall see him, I shall see him.” These joyful anticipations received a check ; it is often the case in life. Se reached the School; but there was no Frank; he did not make his appearance at rehearsal. So it was rather a blank day to Mary Silver. And the first day of the term had been wont to be so pleasant a one. New friends to make, old ones to greet again after a long absence, tales of vacation adventures to hear and relate on all sides. But on the morrow she saw Mr. Templeton at their organ-lesson. He was silent and grave ; nor did she wonder at it when he told her that the reason of his absence yesterday was the sudden death of a relative. They talked together in a subdued manner; but he did not allude in any way, even by tone or look, to that which had passed between them. His recent painful news debarred it for the moment, Mary supposed. She sympathised with him, and he seemed grateful for her sympathy; but she could not help thinking, with a sigh, of how different a meeting this was to-day from the one she had looked forward to yesterday. The days went on. Still Frank did not, by a single word, revert to that moonlight night in the garden. ‘They were together as much as usual at the School; and his manner to her seemed to outsiders the same as ever; but Mary herself, with the keen intuition born of love, knew that he was changed. He was irritable and impatient sometimes ; but that she was too sweet-tempered to mind ; she only tried, with gentle, loving wiles, to bring him back to a more gracious mood. In his manner there appeared a certain shade of constraint, at times approaching coldness, which had never been seen in him before, and that sorely grieved and perplexed her. Had she offended him? She could not think so; but why had he suddenly changed from the tender lover who had kissed her beneath the September moon and called her in the sweetest of whispers ‘‘his little wife?” Why had he done that, if this shadow was to spring up between them close upon it ? Now and then Frank would seem to repent, when he would return to the old tender looks and tones of more than friendship; yet almost before there was time to notice it his mood would change again. It was on the Tuesday after the half-term examination that Mary, going into the room of her pianoforte master, Mr. Wilfred Shelley, CONNICMOOOKS. (Ee)