The Argosy — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

Featherston’s Story. 2) by teaching French and mathematics to as many English pupils as he could obtain out of hours. Like other nofthern French sea- port towns, Sainteville had its small colony of British residents. ‘We shall get on; I am not afraid,” answered Mary Featherston to a doubting remark made to her by old Mrs. Selby of the Court. “‘ Neither I nor Jules have been accustomed to luxury, and we don’t care for it. We'd as soon make our dinner of bread-and-butter and radishes, as of chicken and apple tart.” So the wedding took place, and they departed the same day for Sainteville. And of the first two or three years after that there’s nothing to record, good or bad. Selby Court lay just outside Buttermead. Its mistress, an ancient lady now, was related to the Preen family, of whom I spoke in that story which told of the tragical death of Oliver. Lavinia Preen, sister to Oliver’s father, Gervase Preen, but younger, lived with Mrs. Selby asa sort of adopted daughter; and when the death of the father, old Mr. Preen, left nearly all his large family with scarcely any cheese to their bread, Mrs. Selby told Ann Preen, the youngest of them all, that she might come to her also. So Lavinia and Ann Preen lived at the Court and had no other home. These two ladies were intimate with Mary Featherston, all three being much attached to one another. When Mary married and ieft her country for France, the Miss Preens openly resented it, saying she ought to have had more consideration. Did some pre- monitory instinct prompt that unreasonable resentment? I cannot say. Noonecan say. But it is certain that had Mary Featherston not gone abroad to live, the ominous chain of events fated to engulf the sisters could not have touched them, and this account, which is a perfectly true one, would never have been written. For a short time after the marriage they and Mary Cardiac ex- changed a letter now and then; not often, for foreign postage was expensive ; and then it dropped. Mrs. Selby became an invalid, and died. She left each of the two sisters seventy pounds a-year for life ; if the one died, the other was to enjoy the whole ; when both were dead it would lapse back to the Selby estate. ‘Seventy pounds a-year!” remarked Ann Preen to hersister. “It does not seem very much, does it, Lavinia! Shall we be able to live upon it P” They were seated in the wainscoted parlour at Selby Court, talking of the future. The funeral was over, and they must soon leave ; for the house was waiting to be done up for the reception of its new master, Mr. Paul Selby ; an old bachelor full of nervous fancies. ‘“We must live upon it, Nancy,” said Lavinia in answer to her. She was the stronger-minded of the two, and she looked it A keen, practical woman, of rather more than middle height, with SS CO COMICEIDOO