The Argosy — page 349: what you’re looking at

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

330 Between the Songs. Oscar Albranzo, an artist of moderate means, had strayed up to Ayleshaven from Scarborough, where he had been living for his health, in search of artistic subjects. In the natural course of things he met the Doctor’s pretty daughter at this and that Ayleshaven tea- party and little social gatherings. ‘The man was handsome and fascinating, his foreign accent was only sufficiently marked to be picturesque. ‘To all appearance he fell passionately in love with the © girl; whilst she, on her side, notwithstanding that in spite of his fascinations he was twenty years her senior, by the end of a week or two literally adored the ground he walked on. Some news of this kind found its way to her father, the Doctor. From the first he had disliked Albranzo; he gave his daughter to understand at once that there must an end come rapidly to the folly. The girl was young and high-spirited, and very much in love. She went straight to Albranzo with the news, who first laughed a great deal and then persuaded her into thinking herself very unjustly treated by her father. So the folly, instead of coming to an end, recommenced with new vigour—Albranzo, piqued by the Doctor’s dislike, entering now at all events with real zest into the matter. Then at last there had come the day when her father, infuriated by some new piece of gossip, walked into this room, where she had been playing a round game with her brothers, and briefly, without any show of emotion, ordered her at once, there and now, to choose betwixt her brothers and him—or Albranzo. Albranzo, whether in jest or earnest, had repeatedly proposed that she should go away with him and marry him; possibly it was this, amongst other things, that had reached the Doctor’s ears. She had remained stunned by the blow for a minute, standing there with her elbow on the mantelpiece, and had then answered clearly—for Albranzo. Her father has accepted her answer quite calmly, given her con- cisely to understand that with her marriage would end all possible connection betwixt her and her family, and politely requested her to hasten arrangements as much as practicable for that marriage; arrang- ing, too, where it was to take place. Her answer to that had been to go straight to her room, hastily crush a few things into a portmanteau, and after coming in here and taking formal leave of them, to walk out of the house with her port- manteau. It would have been difficult to say if she had any distinct plan of immediate action in her mind when she left her house, but as fate willed it she met Albranzo at the other side of the common. He laughed, then, until the tears ran down his handsome face, standing opposite to the girl as she made her tragic impassioned narration, all the time her delicate wrists bowed down with the portmanteau in the icy winter moonlight. All at once he took the portmanteau out of her hands, made a hasty appointment to meet her on the morrow, and ECORNIECLOOKS Com