The Argosy — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

106 The Village Blacksmith. like Mrs. Jamieson, papa; I never did; so let us talk of something else,” concluded Vera, secretly rather ashamed of her remarks on Mrs. Jamieson, for whom she was feeling an unaccountable aversion, Perhaps it was because of Vera’s acknowledged dislike for Mrs. Jamieson that Mr. Ryot Tempest paid his next visit to her about a fortnight later alone. And perhaps he was right when he told himself he wished this second visit to be of a pastoral nature, although as Mrs, Jamieson did not live in his parish it was rather a work of supererogation on his part. On this occasion he made two discoveries with regard to Mrs. Jamieson. He discovered, in the first place, that she was of a very sympathetic nature ; and in the next that she was a woman of ex- cellent judgment, who had evidently formed a most correct and high opinion of his ability and worth. He did not discover that she was fully aware of the value of flattery, and knew to a nicety how much every man she came across would swallow. As a rule, the amount was large, and Mr. Ryot Tempest was by no means an ex- ception to the rule. She had the tact to see that any open allusion to his wife’s death would be impolitic at this stage of their acquaint- ance, for it was clear his love and his grief were very real; but this did not deter her from offering deep sympathy with the loneliness and strangeness of his present position, which she understood by sad experience so well. And when she delicately hinted that his sweet daughter was probably too young to enter into his desolate feelings, Mr. Ryot Tempest responded by confiding to her how little he and Vera had in common. “Ah, yes, Mr. Ryot Tempest, I can so well understand how inadequate the immature mind of a young girl like Vera must be to enter into the thoughts and interests of a learned man and a classical scholar like yourself. There must of necessity be a gulf between you it will take years, almost a small lifetime, to bridge over. A woman’s mind seldom matures much under forty, so I can quite feel it must be as impossible for your daughter to be a real com- panion to you as it is for you to take much interest in the tennis and other frivolities which make up the lives of girls.” Mr. Ryot Tempest moved a little uneasily in his chair; for Vera was not a frivolous girl by any means; and, as he knew, was quite qualified to enter into all his studies if she had thought them worth pursuing. ‘Vera is not exactly frivolous; she reads more than most girls of her age, and she is accomplished ; but our minds seem to be cast in different moulds. Or perhaps, as you say, it is that her mind is still unformed,” he replied. ‘‘T am sure it is that. The truth is, Mr. Tempest, as you and I are discovering, it is only a woman ripe in judgment who can really satisfy a man’s natural desire for intellectual sympathy; and it is only the cultivated mind of a man who can respond to a woman’s longing CORNICMHOOLKS, (Efe)