The Argosy — page 304: what you’re looking at

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

A Little Maid, an Old Maid and the Major. 283 where the county families retained their high pews, and where much interest was excited by a quaint tomb on which was the sculptured effigy of a Crusader, the stately dame, his wife, outstretched in stone beside him, while around ran a string course of his kneeling sons and daughters. In warm summer afternoons, while the service proceeded decorously but drowsily, the swallows flying outside backwards and forwards past the windows cast fugitive shadows from their glancing wings on the solemn stone figures. A sweet nook, sweetest of all naturally in the season when mother earth is fairest; attractive even now on this autumn afternoon when Maud returned to it. The apple-blossoms were gone, but the fruit hung ruddy on its branches. ‘The swallows had taken wing to lands where the orange scents the air, or mosques lift their snowy domes above the date-tree and the palm. Maud was glad to be back, and gladder still to perceive, for reasons of her own, that none of her family had come to the Dray- field Station to meet her. She had about half-an-hour’s drive between her and home, and her heart beat with the pleasant antici- pation that we all feel on returning where we know that a welcome awaits us. Nevertheless, the first place she stopped at was not the pretty building known as Elm Tree Cottage, where she lived with her aunt and a covey of younger brothers and sisters. As the fly turned into the village she put out her head, and ordered the driver to pull up at the Post-Office. The post-mistress received her with a smile. She was a bright, gossippy little woman, with one great defect—an insatiable curiosity. *‘Good-day, Miss Carleton. So you are back at last! How glad everybody will be to see you! You have been away a fortnight, I think? Yes, a fortnight exactly to-morrow. You enjoyed your holiday, I hope? I am sure you earned it: you work so hard.” There was a slight ring of patronage in these cordial observations, but Maud did not mind. She had a fund of serene earnestness that made her indifferent to the remarks of the world. “You are very kind, Mrs. Welbrow,” she answered, smiling. ‘I don’t work any harder than everybody should do, I think. You are continually busy yourself.” “Thank you, Miss Carleton ; you have always a pleasant answer. And did you do much in town ? London is so fatiguing ! ! You went to stay with an old school friend, I hear?” Mrs. Welbrow looked like a dog with its ears erect, so eager was she for information. “Yes ; but she was in recent trouble, so we led a very quiet life. I want to take out some money, Mrs. Welbrow. I have the book with me,” and she produced it from her bag. The post-mistress looked surprised, and, with her, surprise and nquisitiveness were one. Maud habitually deposited her spare cash CORNICOOOKS EO