The Argosy — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

The Missing Rubies. 65 Somebody will arrive in the afternoon; she is to stay with Mrs. Wyville till she can find suitable apartments. By the way, Harriet, what about the drawing-rooms, which are empty and which you do not use? Why not take pity upon Madame and let her come here ? I daresay she will be nice.” . ““ We shall see,” rejoined Harriet. ‘It is very likely you will find her settling permanently in Bruton Street. Mrs. Wyville is always asking people to live with her. She would keep you there for ever if she could. Ah, Mr. Vordenberg, good-morning.” ‘** Good-morning,” repeated Miss Ward, brightly. “I hope I shall do you justice to-night, Mr. Vordenberg. I am going to sing some of the songs you have taught me, and I mean to do my very best.” ‘You are sure to succeed in charming everybody,” he said, speaking more gaily than usual. She gave him a parting smile, opened the door, and tripped off lightly into the December mist. It was only a thin mist that hung its light veil over London that day, not a fog that blinds and suffocates, but a haze through which even a winter sun may shine. The pavement was dry; the streets were full of brisk walkers, bustling along with a festive air about them; the shop-windows were gorgeous to behold, and provoked screams of rapture from excited children. Beatrice, taking her way through Bond Street in her new character of an engaged young woman, was decidedly on good terms with herself and all the world. Mr. Vordenberg had banished those indefinite fears which had so swiftly followed her first thrill of joy. Seen by the morning light, this joy now looked so substantial and satisfactory a thing, that she was inclined to scoff at her own misgivings. Godwin and herself, shorn of all glamour and romance, were just two everyday individuals who had taken a sober liking to each other and a sensible resolution to spend their lives together. Beatrice quite gloried in this view of the case, and began to assume little old-fashioned, matronly airs, unconsciously copied from Harriet. She glanced, with a new and lively interest, at those butchers’ and poulterers’ shops which she had once passed with the utmost in- difference. Godwin would expect her to be deeply versed in all the lore of marketing; and a woman who did not understand the difference between a chop and a cutlet would be sure to sink several degrees in his estimation. It would be dreadful, too, not to know whether ducks were dearer than fowls; Beatrice gave a little shudder at her own ignorance, and resolved to go through a severe training before she was many weeks older. As to the jewellers’ windows, she was in no mood for looking at any of their vanities to-day. She had pictured Godwin and herself as a young couple of modest means, with little to spend on self- adornment. And yet, it must be confessed that she halted, with a strange thrill, before a certain tray of plain gold rings. abe meant VOL, XLIV. <omtebosteveon