The Argosy — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

110 Christmas Eve in Rome. [THE Ancosy. he drove on, and there was a lady in the carmage—yes, certainly, now he remembered, there was a lady. } So aunt Lucy was safe ; that was delightful. A coachman was found willing to keep his party waiting whilst he earned an extra fare from us, and we drove quickly, while the dawn lightened into day, back to the Piazza di Spagna. As our carnage stopped at the arched door, a beggar, coiled up just inside, uncoiled, and came out and shook himself. As we went up the staircase, the lamp, which all Romans must burn at the entrance to lodging-houses, flickered and went out. My companion laughed, and drawing a coil of taper out of his pocket, lit it with a match. ‘‘We must not come in hike thieves,” he said. It is strange how I remember every incident of that night still. The knock at the second story brought aunt Lucy’s white face to the door. She almost screamed for joy at seeing me, and listened breathless to my companion’s quiet narration of what had occurred. Aunt Lucy overwhelmed him with grati- tude, and said that my father would call upon him and thank him for his courteous kindness the next day, if he would give us his name, &c. The stranger smiled. ‘I think,” he said, “that Mr. Hope will scarcely find me wholly unknown. I did not hear this morning who he was; but Miss Hope has incidentally mentioned the name, and by a coincidence I find that my father’s old friend, Mr. Hope, about whose arrival he wrote to me last week, is the gentleman whose lodgings I vacated this morning ! My name is Leslie.” Then ensued mutual congratulations between Mr. Leslie and aunt Lucy. Aunt Lucy gave an account how she had lost me in St. Peter’s, and after a vain search had thought it best to drive back. She had only returned a quarter of an hour, and was deli- berating what to do, and whether to rouse my father, when we came in. Then she pressed Mr. Leslie to have some breakfast, but he declined, and bowed himself out with a promise to call next day. ‘Would you mind holding the taper?” he said, as I accompanied him to the door. I took it, a little amused, and held it high to light him on the staircase. He turned, as his foot touched the second step, and looked back at me a moment or two. ‘‘T saw you first, holding the light so,” he said, quietly. “I thonght youwere Saint Filomena to me. Good night; no, it is good morning now.” But my story is finished, for Christmas eve is over, and Chnstmas morning begun. Mr. Leslie came to see my father next day, who was much better, and delighted to make acquaintance with the son of his old friend, Colonel Leslie, of the —th. I was much laughed at for losing myself on my first visit to St. Peter's, but I never could see why I was more foolish than aunt Lucy! Perhaps it was because of the sequel that my father used to say, I lost myself “on purpose to be found,” he believed ! He says so more than ever now, though really the joke is very old, for Mr. Leslie and I have been married more than five years. COMICDOOKS. Com