The Argosy — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

I4I PANY WATERS \OUBNCH NOT LOVE. (FOUNDED ON Fact.) ws HAT was all that commotion about just now ? ” ‘“Oh, nothing. It was only some stupid old man who had not been in the town for ever so long going by, and Mrs. Brown called us to see. What have I done with my gloves? I now I brought them in here. Oh, there they are, under that chair. What plagues things are !—Coming, Annette, coming!” “Did she say who the old man was?” But the words were spoken to empty air, for the heroine of the gloves was already flying down stairs in the best approved costume for the fashionable promenade. Her great-aunt, Miss Dorothy Fielding, leant back, meditating, in her chair. She was a cripple of many years’ standing from rheumatism and sciatica, and could move but little without assistance. She was also very old; but although her face had many wrinkles there was abundant play of expression about it yet, and living evidence that she had by no means outlived her faculties. An ordinary face it never had been, although, equally, she had never been beautiful. In her youth some had called her plain, some good-looking, some pretty ; put full of life and expression that face had always been; full of character, and that no ordinary one; full of vivacity, the light of which after four-score years was even yet unquenched. Her eyes were dark brown, sensible, true and very kindly. Any- one with a degree of imagination in their brains would have felt certain her companionship even now would not be dull; so sympa- thetic, bright, and, in the evening-time of life, so placidly content was the countenance that looked forth under the matronly cap and thick grey hair. She had been full of love and lovers with the brightest, once upon atime; she had dreamt many a waking dream, had been attractive and popular ; but she had never married. She was Miss Fielding now, as she had been at the beginning of the chapter. The young people around her were on the whole a selfish, pre- occupied set, who had few thoughts to spare from dress and gaiety, and who would as soon have thought of giving up one of their pleasures to sit for an hour with Aunt Dorothy as of being hospital nurses. When she had come amongst them some months previously, she had looked forward to being their confidante on various points. All her soul kindled yet over a real love affair, and she could sympathise also with minor matters of small flirtation and girlish fun. But even COnnicboooks im