The Argosy — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

74 Poor Aunt Deb! as a priceless boon. Amidst new scenes and the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of the invalid’s room, the old wounds, that had cut so deeply, slowly healed over. ‘Six years slipped away, and then, amongst the circle of friends who brightened our quiet lives, I met my husband. He was to me such a revelation of happy, joyous life, that had known no sorrow or gloom, that my saddened heart seemed to gain fresh life and vigour from his presence. In another year we married, and, to this day, I have never lifted the veil from that dreary past. The boatman and his wife I could never hear anything more of. They were both old, and talked of returning that year to Scotland to end their days amongst their own friends. Of you, I had but the faintest recollec- tion, never having heard your name; but the good woman told me how the nourishing food and stimulants you brought seemed to give me the power of struggling back to life again.” I had listened to her story almost without comment. It was so strange, and yet not quite improbable ; while of the truth—the absolute truth—of every word I could entertain no doubt. Her manner of telling it had ¢vuth unmistakably stamped upon it. I could not, however, refrain from urging her once again most earnestly to seek some opportunity of telling her husband all she had told to me. For a time my words had no effect. ‘Then, suddenly throwing her arms around me, she said: “I will! I will! I know he loves me dearly ; and with your help and testimony, if he likes to prove it all, he can do so.” “Most willingly will I do everything I can for both of you,” I answered. ‘‘ But be sure, too, that my lips are for ever closed on this subject to all the world beside till that day when all secrets shall stand revealed.” From that hour to this I have never seen her again. Whether she ever told her husband, I cannot tell; but this I do know from my niece, that she and Sir James are still all in all to each other— happy in their beautiful home ; happy in the possession of children and hosts of friends. May God ever keep her so. I dropped the papers in astonishment. What an odd story. To think of Aunt Deb being dragged into such a romance as this. There must have been something more in the old lady than I ever gave her credit for, or how could she have carried such a secret with her to the grave? I, with the more flippant tendencies of the pre- sent day, must have found out what was the end of it all—whether she told her husband; whether he ever came across the perfidious Verney—and perhaps I should have ended by creating a disturbance that would have furnished gossip for the society journals for months to come. I think, however, I still have the grace to see how much nobler and wiser was the reticence of poor Aunt Deb. COMICOOOKS.CO©