Life — July 24, 1884 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE: 49 “Tf she’s from Rivermouth—and Ill soon fai-ind out—there “Tell me!” he cried hoarsely, “are you from Rivermouth, caw n't be any reason why I should n’t know her !” after all ?” And when, on the third day out, he was assured that she “Why, yes, Pinckney,” she said, wonderingly. “ Papa was came from Rivermouth, he managed with great speed and | a plumber, you know ; and we have lived in Rivermouth ever skill to make her acquaintance. | since he retired, ten years ago.” She was Dorothy Alden, just seventeen, and with all the Great drops of agony started out on his brow, and a low loveliness that violet eyes and a wealth of auburn hair could | moan broke from his pallid lips. Tightening his hold on her bestow. She had been for six long years at Fontainebleau | arm he gasped, feverishly : with Mme. Tabét, and vowed, with a dainty little French “And your grandfather, girl—your grandfather ?” twist in her English, that she hardly recollected her American “Why, Pinckney,” she answered again, “ you frighten me ! home at all. “Dear papa!” she said, sighing deliciously. | My grandfather? 1 don’t believe I ever had any !” | “It is very long that I have not seen him. But I love him. And with a cry of unutterable horror Pinckney Hancock And, do you know (this in a confidential whisper), he is so rich !” | fell senseless at her feet. i M. E. W. And Mr. Hancock felt for the first time an uneasy doubt ; for, in the days before his departure for England, unlimited wealth was certainly not characteristic of a Rivermouth aristocrat. The end might have been foreseen. It was not love, for Dorothy knew nothing of sentiment, just escaped as she was from the strictness of a foreign school ; while Bostonians long ago determined to leave that tawdry and inelegant emotion to the lower classes; and Mr. Hancock was too intelligent to question the justice of a Boston decision. But two hearts had learned to beat vehemently and two heads were com- pletely turned, and as the voyage drew toward its close Pinckney threw caution to the winds and suggested that they should be privately and expeditiously married upon the ar- rival of the ship. Dorothy, charmed with the unconvention- ality of the plan, assented at once; and they accordingly stole ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE. . quietJy off when the dock was reached. Great was the terror [From Chambers’ Yournal.] of Dorothy’s duenna when she found that her charge had es- HEN continental advertisers, bent upon lightening caped, and, after telegraphing the bereft father, she settled British purses, rashly adventure to attack English- herself in a fashionable hotel, at his expense, to await further | men in their own tongue, the result is often disastrously com- developments. ical. The proprietor of a “ milk-cur” establishment in Aix- In the meantime the runaway couple had been united in the | la-Chapelle, “foundet before twenty years of orders from the holy bonds of matrimony by a Ritualist clergyman who in- | magistrat,” boasts that his quality of “Suisse and his experi- toned the services beautifully through his nose ; and then re- | ences causes him to deliver a milk pure and nutritive, obtained pairing to the Brunswick they telegraphed the announcement | by sounds cow’s and by a natural forage.” One Parisian of the auspicious event to their parents, and anxiously looked | hosier. informs his hoped-for patrons he possesses patent for the replies. machinery for cutting “sirths”—Franco-English, we pre- At first a budget of letters came; and after Mrs. Pinckney | sume, for shirts. Another proclaims his resolve to sell his had selected two or three, her husband took his own and | wares dirty cheap; and a dealer in butter, eggs and cheeses, walked away to the window to open them with uncertain fin- | whose “ produces ” arrive every day “from the farms of the gers, for he felt rather doubtful as to his mother’s reception | establishment without intermedial,” requests would-be cus- of his news. But how could she fail to approve of a real | tomers to send orders by unpaid letters, as “the house does Rivermouth Alden. not recognize any traveler.” A Hamburg firm notifies that Pretty Mrs. Pinckney heard all at once a groan, and look- | their “ universal binocle of field is also preferable, for the use ing up beheld the bridegroom purple with passion and a | in the field, like in the theatre, and had to the last degree of crumpled paper clenched in his fingers. This was his moth- | perfection concerning to rigoressness and pureness of the er’s letter : glass;” while they are ready to supply all comers with “A DEAR PINCKNEY: Glass of Field for the Marine 52ctm objectiv opening in extra There are xo girls in ¢he Rivermouth Alden, family. Ze | shout lac-leather étui and strap, at sh 35s 6d.” This is a children were all boys! Whom have you married? We | specimen of their “English young man’s” powers of com- are ruined in the eyes of B»ton forever! position that would justify the enterprising opticians in imi- agonized mother, tating the Frenchman whose shop window was graced witha Mt. Vernon Street, Tues ABIGAIL QUINCY HANCOCK. | placard, bearing the strange device, “English spoken here a Mr. Hancock seized hi by the arm. few.” comicbooks.com