The Argosy — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

30 Featherston’s Story. smooth brown hair, pleasant dark hazel eyes and a bright glow in her cheeks. Ann (or Nancy, as she was more often called) was smaller and slighter, with a pretty face, a shower of fair ringlets, and mild, light blue eyes; altogether not unlike a pink and white wax doll. ‘“We should have been worse off, Nancy, had she not left us anything ; and sometimes I have feared she might not,” remarked Lavinia cheerfully. ‘It will bea hundred-and-forty pounds between us, dear; we can live upon that.” ‘Of course we can, if you think so, Lavinia,” said the other, who deemed her elder sister wiser than anyone in the world, and revered her accordingly. ‘‘ But we should live cheaper abroad than here, I expect,” continued Lavinia. ‘It’s said money goes twice as far in France as in England. Suppose we were to go over, Nancy, and try? We could come back if we did not like it.” Nancy’s eyes sparkled. ‘I think it would be delightful,” she said. ‘* Money go further in France—why to besure it does! Aunt Emily is able to live like a princess at Tours, by all accounts. Yes, yes Lavinia, let us try France!” One fine spring morning the Miss Preens packed up their bag and baggage and started for the Continent. They went direct to Tours, intending to make that place their pied-a-terre, as the French phrase it; at any rate foratime. It was not, perhaps, the wisest thing they could have done. For Mrs. Magnus, formerly Emily Preen, and their late father’s sister, did not welcome them warmly. She lived in style herself, one of the leading stars in the society of Tours; and she did not at all like that two middle-aged nieces, of straitened means, should take up their abode in the next street. So Mrs. Magnus met her nieces with the assurance that Tours would not do for them ; it was too expensive a place; they would be swamped in it. Mrs. Magnus was drawing near to the close of her life then; had she known it, she might have been kinder, and let them remain ; but she was not able to foresee the hour of that great event, which must happen to us all, any more than other people are. Oliver Preen was with her then, revelling in the sunny days which were flitting away on gossamer wings. ‘‘ Lavinia, do you think we can stay at Tours ?” The Miss Preens had descended at a fourth-rate hotel, picked out of the guide book. When Ann asked this question, they were sitting after dinner in the table d’hote room, their feet on the sanded floor. Sanded floors were quite usual at that time in many parts of France. ‘Stay here to put up with Aunt Emily’s pride and insolence! ” quickly answered Miss Preen. ‘No. I will tell you what I have COMIC OOOKS.CO