The Argosy — page 344: what you’re looking at

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

The Missing Rubies. 323 women to whom sunshine and shade are both alike. But to neither of these two classes did Beatrice Ward belong. She was too young and too inexperienced to have acquired that belief in self which often gives a woman great power over a man when it is joined to wisdom. Hers was a sweet and generous heart, ripening by slow degrees. ‘To her love came quickly and self-know- ledge slowly. While they were all driving homeward she was silently wondering at her own girlish dreams—those happy dreams that had brightened her whole life. She had not always guessed where the glory came from ; but it shone over her daily path, and gilded every thought and word and deed. And now, because one face seemed cold and changed, all the light was gone. She had secretly believed, from the very first day of their meeting, that an unhappy love had played no unimportant part in Godwin’s history. Earle was a man whose face had a story written on it; and such faces generally possess an indescribable charm for young women. They do not know how the story has been written; they would not, if they were told the truth, believe that sin and folly have printed on certain beloved features that stamp of ineffaceable melan- choly. They love him ‘‘for the sorrows he has passed,” without inquiring why those sorrows fell to his lot. He has been wronged, they say to themselves; some woman has played him false; some friend has betrayed him. And so they pity him for imaginary woes, until the pit deepens, unawares, into love. It was well for Beatrice that the hero of her first romance, although not possessed of many heroic qualities, had more good in him than most of the refined-looking, weary men who lead captive silly women —aye, and wise ones, too. If she could only have read his thoughts when he went to his room that night, her anxious soul would have found comfort. No sooner had he left Mrs. Milton and her charge at their own house, than he began to blame himself for his fit of despondency. It was his own fault if a bright evening had had a gloomy ending. What man in his senses would care for the faint scent of pot fourrt, when a fresh rose was unfolding its rich heart by his side? He was just beginning to féel Beatrice’s healthy influence stealing over his life, and renewing his youth; and Alma crossed his path, and dis- turbed him with words and smiles that were only sweet because they brought with them the perfume of the past. In spite of all that poets have sung, old things are zot always best. It is a sentimental feeling that invests bygone days with fictitious glory. Those hearts are happiest that know a second youth in their maturity ; and to men like Earle a second youth means a new love. (To be continued. ) COM () VHOO|kKS.CO