The Argosy — page 371: what you’re looking at

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

THE ARGOSY. MAY, 1889. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. ——_->-04e—— CHAPTER XIII. MARK BROWN PLAYS THE GOOD SAMARITAN. PEW parts were more alien to Mark Brown’s character than that of the Good Samaritan ; yet circumstances ruled that he should play it on the night of Reuben’s temptation and meeting with Vera. The circumstances which kept him awake that night were of a very trivial nature ; mussels for supper, and some domestic changes his master’s marriage was to cause in the establishment. These changes and the mussels had been discussed at supper in the kitchen, and Mark retired to rest full of both, and equally unable to digest either. The changes affected his peace of mind, the mussels his body ; both united to keep him awake; so Mark lay tossing about, blaming alter- nately the mussels and the new arrangements, the fishmonger and the Rector. Three new servants were to enter the household with the bride: a butler, a coachman and a lady’s maid. To the latter Mark had no objection ; to the two former he objected strongly, for he was to be under both, and would no longer have it all his own way with the maid-servants. Instead of being king of the kitchen, he had sunk toa mere under-servant, with a master in the stable and another in the pantry in addition to Mr. Ryot Tempest. As he lay considering these things, with the mussels heavy on his chest, he heard Vera’s bedroom door open, for his room was an attic over hers. A minute later and he heard the hall door open and shut, and, jumpmg out of bed he went to the window. By the bright moonlight he saw in the garden the figure of his young mistress wrapped in her blue dressing- gown, her beautiful hair streaming down her back, the crisp, wavy, silken tresses veiling the graceful girlish form in a priceless cloth of. gold as it flitted down the drive. Surprise, curiosity, suspicion, and a malignant pleasure were the various emotions this apparition caused in Mark’s mind as he rubbed VOL, XLVII. Y GOL GOOO @ Ss (GO)