The Argosy — page 194: what you’re looking at

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

| . ] . | | | | ) 7. cee a, wr OS Y. SEPTEMBER, 1889. ——————— A IHE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. BY DARLEY DALE, AUTHOR OF ‘FAIR KATHERINE.” CHAPTER XXV. MRS. RYOT-TEMPEST IS BAFFLED. IN AAMRE is Capricious, never more capricious than in matters of climate. She will spoil what might have been a soft, balmy spring day with a cold east wind, she will give us snow in June and thunder in December, rain when we don’t want it and drought when we want rain. The day on which the Archdeacon started for his first visitation, leaving Vera at home to the tender mercies of her step- mother, was an April day; the sun was shining brightly but the wind was east, therefore cold, cutting, cruel. The Archdeacon was a chilly mortal and would have enjoyed the warm, genial, April sun but for the cold blasts which every now and then made him shiver. As he rode to the station the sun and the wind reminded him of the two women he had left at home. The sun was like his bright, beautiful Vera ; and, oh, how happy he might have been with her but for Mrs. Ryot-Tempest, the east wind of his hearth and home. When he left the Rectory, Vera went to her own sitting-room. It was the room which had been her mother’s, and as the present Mrs. Ryot-Tempest rarely entered it Vera felt safe from intrusion, and decided to order her luncheon to be brought to her there instead of going out as her father had suggested, for she was not feeling at all well, nor in the mood for visiting. She could think of nothing but the diamonds and the gross accusation Mrs. Ryot-Tempest had brought against her, and as she sat thinking over the matter it occurred to her that her defence was very weak. All the evidence was strongly against her. Who was to prove she had been walking in her sleep? True, Norah Canter and Reuben Foreman could bear witness she had done so on former occasions, but who was to prove she had done so the night of the robbery? The more she thought of it all the less VOL. XLVIII. M CORNICLIOO CS (SO) im