The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

12 THE hill, past new houses and old, scattered among the trees and rocks, and presently, at a spot from which he could see the blue and silver Hudson shimmering through the trees, he passed between some venerable gate-posts and approached a mansion that had lost little of its dignity and grandeur in the sixty-odd years of its service. A maid servant answered his ring and ushered him into a high-walled parlor, fur- nished with conspicuous good taste in Tu- dor style, with somber hangings of heavy brocades at the doors and windows. The maid went to give his name to her master, and an instant later a young girl entered the house, just returned from morning horse exercise. She caught sight of the visitor as she was passing the parlor door, and stopped. “Oh, good morning, Mr. Hampton!” she cried, in unaffected good spirits, and waved him a little salute with her riding-. crop. Jerry sprang forward to meet her, and she gave him her gloved hand with the same easy, rather boyish cordiality. _“T’m glad to see you looking so fit to- day,” she remarked, ‘“‘for you and your friend really showed signs of wear last night. I didn’t want to seem inquisitive at the time, but you looked very much as though you had used your street-clothes for bathing suits. I might have indulged my curiosity a little more, but your friend —Mr. Tarleton, wasn’t it?p—seemed quite a bear. He simply wouldn’t accept any help from me, and I think he was really very angry because my car came so near to running him down. Of course, he was not at all ill-mannered about it.” “T’m sure that he didn’t mean to be,” replied Jerry earnestly, “‘and I don’t think that he was. even angry. Your chauffeur was not at fault at all, and he stopped the car so quickly! Mr.—er—Mr, Tarleton was quite ill at the time, and you know that it’s hard to keep up the best of man- ners when you're ill.”’ “Y’m sorry,” said the girl; “I suppose I forced him to talk when it would have been kinder to leave him alone, But I am ARGOSY. curious this morning, Mr. Hampton, and you haven’t given me any explanation of your own appearance last night. You usually look so well groomed that when , you are rumpled up and disheveled it’s bound to be noticed. I’m determined to have it that you had been through some spirited adventure.” Jerry . fidgeted uncomfortably and laughed. “Leave out the spirited, and just put it down as an ordinary adventure, if you can apply that term to a tumble into the water,”’ he said. : “Ah!” Miss Delroy exclaimed banter- ingly, “one of you fell in, and the other came tumbling after! But what an ex- traordinary prank for two dignified grown men to indulge in! I’ll wager that if the truth could be got at, one of you fell in, and the other pulled him out and saved his life, at great personal risk and with great gallantry. And, since you are so awfully reticent and uncomfortable about it, the inference is that you were the valiant rescuer.” “Tt’s mighty pleasant to have you paint such a‘picture,” said Jerry, recovering his poise, “but fact is very poor in gallantry compared with fiction. However, if I can be a hero in your imagination, it’s worth living for.” “T see that I can get nothing out of you,” she retorted; “and if you’re turning to gallant speeches I suppose we must change the subject. How is your dear grandmother, and how is the wonderful farm getting on?” “Both doing very well,” answered the young man. “My working force of one is tilling the soil industriously and scientifi- cally, and my live stock: is thriving. The farm has very few visitors, by the way, and my grandmother’s great ambition to be a hostess is not often gratified. Of course, when one lives on a farm, one can’t expect much social life, but—” The girl laughed merrily. “T shall call on your grandmother very soon,” she assured him, ‘‘and perhaps you will show me the fertile fields and the low- CORMICLOOOKS (C@