The Argosy — page 349: what you’re looking at

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

328 The Lovely Widow. “Well, ma’am, it’s all over then—I watched them pass to the cemetery.” Mrs. Grant bowed her head. “Yes, it’s over. They managed very well; everything quiet and decent, as je had wished it.” And the old eyes tried to look as steady at the fire as before. “Oh, ma’am, but it has been a bitter day for you that saw him buried ! ” said the servant, in sympathising earnestness. The tender words broke down the mother’s stern self-restraint. She wept long, and moaned the name of her son. Edward Grant had been a very uninteresting person to the world at large. A plain man of middle age, sufficiently well to do as a merchant to keep up the substantial respectability in which his father had lived before him, and with no desire for any of the show and luxury in which his neighbours indulged—many of them poorer than he. To his mother he had been everything, for she had no other child, and Maria had nursed him as an infant, scolded him as a schoolboy, and worshipped him all his life. To both these women the day when he arrived from Paris, bringing with him a lovely bride, of whom they had heard nothing, was remembered as the blackest in their calendar. It was Edward Grant’s one grand error in his mother’s eyes. She could have welcomed a wife of her own choosing, but this one of his found no favour in her eyes. It took but a few days to remove from the large house which had been her husband’s, and to settle in a cottage—firm refusal to share her son’s home being given. With her retired Maria, in grim contempt of the follies of men. And, after all, he had not lived a year with his young wife when death came ! So the two old women wept together over the memory of the dead man, and Maria heard that his will left everything to his wife. “Not that I wanted anything,” said the mother, amid her tears ; ‘“T’ve enough and to spare; but there’s no mention of me! Maybe I was too hard on them.” Maria glowered at the fire, and said, emphatically : “¢She’s a deep one! I always said it!” Bi, ‘‘ FLORENCE,” the old lady was saying, nervously, ‘‘ we have not been much to each other—but he we both loved is gone, and I’d be glad to help you if I could.” The lovely face showed no signs of desire to reciprocate. ‘The deep blue eyes had a light in them that made them almost black. “You are very good—but there is nothing you can do for me.” Old Mrs. Grant winced. ‘You can’t forgive me yet, but there are things I might do for you. This large house and furniture need care, and so young a widow cannot live alone.” Gomichbooks.co