The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

HELLO, SOMEBODY! “Sweater! I wear a chiffon scarf!” “Take back the words! They excite me frantically. Don’t tell me that I am to see a real girl! You know the kind I means. She wears a white dress with ruf- fles and when she gets older it’s a blue muslin and later, when she is quite old, it turns into a gray silk.” A low laugh came merrily back to him. “T know the kind exactly, but I won’t promise what you’ll see. You won’t see anything if you don’t stop talking and start. You must take a Ramsey Road car and get off at Leavitt’s Lane.” “Oh, I say,” the boy in him blurted out, “just as we are getting acquainted, will a cruel parent appear and order me out?” , “What’s that? A cruel—Oh, no. I’m afraid there won’t be any parent.” <A new note struck his ear. “Oh, I say,” the man in him apolo- gized, “I’m sorry, Miss Parker. Tm afraid I went too far.” “Why, no-o. It’s only that if you hadn’t had a parent for—for a very long time, almost any kind would seem pretty fine, that’s all.” Chard’s warm heart went out in quick sympathy. She was an orphan, probably alone in a boarding-house. “Miss Angelique,” he called impul- sively, “are you lonesome too?” “Why, just a little bit, just the least bit in the world. Not that I haven’t friends, the best possible kind of friends, but you see Sunday is such a home day. Everybody is so—so—”’ “Thundering busy,” Chard. “Oh, thundering,” she agreed, promptly. “T’m coming now!” he cried and seized his hat. The Ramsey Road car journeyed around the big manufacturing town quite a bit before it skated into Ramsey Road at all, then Chard noticed that the city was quietly turning into the country. The tall, thin houses were growing shorter and broader. They were also moving farther apart and settling themselves down in supplemented pretty little lawns and gardens. Baby car- riages and hammocks and garden hose be- gan to appear and the piazzas had a no- ticeably hospitable air. When he alighted at Leavitt’s Lane, Chard swung easily along, studying the numbers as he passed. It was not a very long street and No. 136 proved to be the last house in it. Chard looked with sur- prise at the rambling, old-fashioned dwell- ing in a garden enclosed by a white picket fence. It did not look like a boarding-house and his heart thumped rather nervously as he opened the little gate and walked up the path. He had hoped the girl would make it easier by coming out to meet him, but no one was in sight. However, the door stood hospitably open and as soon as he stepped on the porch a voice, grown familiar within the hour, called gaily out to him. “Come right in!” she cried. ‘Come in and see what you see!” And what he saw—what his amazed eyes actually saw—was a big comfortable, cushioned wheel-chair holding a pretty little pink faced lady in a gray silk dress. Fortunately the floor did not open and swallow him, staring eyes, fatuous smile and all, because in a minute, after one swift, searching look that took him all in, Miss Angelique Parker began to laugh so merrily that Chard was suddenly glad he was there after all. “You began it,” she chaffed him, “so you have to take the consequences. And there aren’t any false pretenses about me, I’m just as represented.” She flaunted her pretty scarf airily. “Ves, you are exactly as guaranteed,” agreed Chard, pushing up a chair and not- ing compassionately that the fetching slip- pers had never been rubbed by any con- tact with the floor. ‘‘And you are so en- tirely satisfactory that I am going to stay.” “Until quarter past five,” she amended. “T have another engagement later. I told you I was popular.” “You told me you were lonesome. Now CORMMICLOOOKS ‘Hg | (E@