The Argosy, Vol. 37

# The White Witch, Argos, January 1884

This serial novel by M. Ellen Staples concerns the household upheaval at Croxham Abbey in Lancashire when Mr. Mayne, recently returned from the continent, secretly marries a widow named Mrs. Dixon, whom he met at Nice. His twenty-five-year-old son Godfrey learns of the marriage through letter and is appalled, convinced his father has been ensnared by an adventuress. Convinced a woman married for his father's wealth and status will mistreat him, Godfrey resolves to absent himself from the Abbey, planning to flee to Liverpool before his father and new stepmother arrive Saturday. The narrative establishes local village gossip about the foreign bride, Godfrey's emotional immaturity following his mother's death two years prior, his reluctant interactions with the vicar's daughters at the Vicarage, and detailed descriptions of Croxham Abbey's architecture and surrounding grounds. The text breaks mid-sentence, continuing the story beyond this excerpt.