The Argosy — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Valena. 169 bear to be a kill-joy, and yet there are times when I feel as if their noisy mirth would madden me. Listen!” and she turned and laid a tiny hand on de Cressy’s arm. They had gained the shelter of a little thicket of flowering shrubs within sound of the ripple and wash of the river. From the landing-place came voices laughing, calling, joking, in all the fun and excitement of embarkation. The band on the barge began to bray out cheerfully an air from ‘“‘ Patience,” there was an irregular splashing of oars, and an occasional shriek from some nervous passenger. “Can you blame me for having no heart for it all?” Amy demanded, with reproach in her blue eyes. De Cressy felt as great a brute as if he had done any such thing, and eagerly suggested a compromise, to let the others start and follow them leisurely at a long interval, thereby reducing the strain on Amy’s feelings to a minimum. Slowly drifting down the stream in the wake of the distant music, under the green arching branches, stopping to gather handsful of wild flowers, or sweeping out again into the sunshine over golden sand and shallow, misgivings did now and again arise in the Curate’s mind that listening to Amy’s sorrows, told over a lapful of forget-me- nots, with her eyes as blue looking into his for sympathy, was not precisely the help he was expected to give that day ; but he comforted himself with the reflection that the others had Hester and the Vicar. “To the light-hearted—the light-hearted. Let those who have known the sadness of life minister to each other’s griefs,” and he turned to the forget-me-not eyes with new sympathy. Ot = Gal gd So ae eee, Op, ©, Seal I WF A CALL FOR HELP. Ir was in no holiday spirit that Hester had begun that day. <A weight lay like lead at her heart ; a weight that would have dragged her back from any pleasure-seeking of her own; that urged her to rash and unreasoning efforts to rid herself of its burden. To wild visions of a personal interview with Mr. Meynell; of appealing to Daddy to use his influence—she did not quite know to what end; of going herself to Shorncliffe to make enquiries. She could not sit with her hands folded while days were flying and detectives were blundering, and Edric’s own people writing anxious appeals and offering increased rewards unavailingly, and Sir John driving her mad by ominous shakes of the head and references to ‘‘ that unlucky lad, Sanderson.” ‘* Oh, to be a man and a brother officer for one brief day !” “You'd be at Portsmouth, then, and no better off that I can see,” was Master Jock’s comment. Hester was pressing on with his likeness at every available hour, partly moved by gratitude to her mother for acting so handsomely in ECOMICOOOKS.EO© im