The Argosy — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

The Village Blacksmith. Q7 that sacrilegious baptism: a sufficiently heavy list, but trifling com- pared with the sins he was now contemplating. ‘To have married Janet would not have raised him, for his love for her was not that holy thing which men call love, but passion ; and passion gratified or thwarted can only degrade the soul. Love is a purifying flame, passion a consuming fire ; love purifies the soul, passion defiles it ; love raises its victims to heaven, passion thrusts its prey down to the depths. To have been rejected by Janet completed the work of destruc- tion begun in Mark’s soul when, in Reuben’s chapel, he lied in the hope of winning her. He started then on his down-hill course and now he was going so fast he could not pull himself up. Cuircum- stances, too, favoured him as they too often favour an evil career. The party at which Mr. Ryot-Tempest was to make his début as Archdeacon, was a dinner-party to be followed by an ‘‘at home.” Vera was not invited to the dinner-party and had declined the reception, which would have necessitated sending the carriage back to fetch her, and the house was five miles off. She rarely went out now, for she saw her step-mother disliked taking her, and the parties were very flat in her opinion when the only person she cared to meet was absent. To-night she was rather sorry she could not go, as she would have liked to have seen her father’s little triumph ; but she kept her regrets to herself, as she put some finishing touches to her step-mother’s dress, while she was waiting for the Archdeacon and the carriage. Why, you have not put on your diamonds!” said Vera in surprise, as she folded an opera-cloak round Mrs. Ryot-Tempest’s white shoulders. “No; I want your father to be the centre of attraction to-night; I am only shining by a reflected light: I am playing the moon to his sun,” said Mrs. Ryot-Tempest amiably. ‘‘I wish he would come down ; we shall be late. Ah, here he is! Talk of the sun,” she con- tinued as the Archdeacon in his new evening dress entered the room almost as shyly as a girl at her first ball. ‘My dear Poppy, I think these stockings are a trifle large,” said the Archdeacon nervously, as he turned his little body round to show his little legs encased in silk stockings which hung like sacks round his thin calves. The rest of his costume fitted him perfectly but the stockings com- pletely spoilt the effect of the buckled shoes, the knee-breeches and high black silk waistcoat. ‘My dear Ryot, you can’t go in them; they are fatal ; I never saw such an exhibition!” And with very questionable taste Mrs. Ryot- Tempest threw herself back in her chair and laughed till she cried. “But whatam I todo? I have no others,” said the new Arch- deacon in despair, vexed at his wife’s laughter; for though personal vanity was not a conspicuous weakness of his, he flattered himself he had a good leg and was not sorry that the office of Archdeacon entitled him to exhibit it to his fellow-men. CORNICLIOO iS (CO) mn