The Argosy — page 238: what you’re looking at

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

4 : A Free-Will Offering. 221 | | _ She did not seem surprised to see the two together; she only sniled alittle on them. And it did not strike the Major then as | strange that she should take everything so much for granted. To : _ himself it was all such a surprise, as yet such an inexplicable mystery, that he forgot to wonder at any one particular more than another. Roger handed him a little plain gold ring, and he could _ but obey his directions and follow his prompting. | } 3 _ Sara took her cousin’s arm up the church. The clergyman was 2 already there, and hastened through the service with a speed for | which Major Brown inwardly thanked him. ‘The place was so dark | and still, the voices so quiet and the general hush so profound that ; the whole scene passed more like a dream than a reality. Major | _ Brown recognised dimly at last that the ceremony was over and then | that Sara had turned shyly to him. He bent low over her hand which he still held, and pressed his lips to it. Then a great calm succeeded the raging storm of mingled thoughts and feelings that ) seemed to eddy through his brain, and still keeping her hand he | drew her towards him, and kissed her on the forehead, and then on » ~=T. zeD> Br FE the lips, calling her his wife. _ Roger’s impatient voice called to him to hasten. _ Then followed the signing of names and the common-place assurance of good wishes from the chaplain, who at the same time evidently regarded the newly-married couple with some suspicion, as | 'not being in the entire possession of their right minds. And then, | | before the Major knew rightly what was being done, Roger had taken Sara by the arm with some of his old imperious roughness, and led her aside to the door. He spoke there with her for a few minutes in | _a low, hard whisper, and then she returned to Major Brown, her eyes | | full of tears. | | “ He is gone,” she said, putting her hand into his. ‘‘ And now,” with a quiver in her voice and a long-drawn sigh, as if at length her heart had found its rest, *‘ we have the world before us. Where are : | you going to take me?” COnmicooolkxs.Con