The Argosy — page 276: what you’re looking at

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

258 The Master of Greylands. casement looked on to the sea, with a small bed in a corner. Sister Mildred was dressed and sat by the fire. She was a_fair-com- plexioned, pleasant~looking, talkative woman, slightly deformed, and past fifty, but still very light and active. Of her own accord, she introduced the subject of resigning her post to Miss Castlemaine, and pressed her urgently to take it. . ‘The holding it has become a trouble to me, my dear,” she said ‘Instead of lying here at peace with nothing to think of—and some days I can’t get up at all—I am being reférred to perpetually. Sister Margaret refuses to take it; she says she’s of more good for writing and account keeping. As to Sister Charlotte, she is always amid the little ones in the school; she likes teaching—and so there it is. Your taking it, my dear, would solve a difficulty ; and we could hardly let one, bearing the honoured name of Castlemaine, be among us, and not be placed at our head.” ‘You may get better; you may regain your health,” said Mary. “And, please God, I shall,” cheerfully returned Sister Mildred, when she could be made to comprehend the remark. ‘But I shall be none the more competent for my post. My deafness has become so much worse since health failed that that of itself unfits me forit. The Sisters will tell you so. Why, my dear, you don’t know the mistakes it leads to. I hear just the opposite of what’s really said, and give orders accordingly. Sister Margaret wrote a letter and transacted some business all wrong through this, and it has caused ever so much trouble to set it to rights. It 1s mortifying to her and to me.” “ To all of us,” put in Sister Charlotte. “Why, my dear Miss Castlemaine, just look at my misapprehension. Only the other day,” continued the Superioress, who dearly loved a gossip when she could get it, ‘‘ Sister Ann came running up here ina flurry, her eyes sparkling, saying Parson Marston was below. ‘ What, below then,’ Iasked. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘ below then,’ and ran off again- I wondered what could have brought the parson here, for we don’t see him at the Nunnery from year’s end to year’s end, but was grateful to him for thinking of us, and felt that I ought to get down to receive and thank him. SolI turned out of bed and scuffled into my petticoats, slipping on my best gown and a new cap, and down I went. Would you believe it, my dear young lady, that it was not Parson Marston at all, but a fine sucking pig!” Mary could not avoid a laugh. “A beautiful sucking-pig, that lasted us two days when cooked, sent to us as a present by Farmer Watson, good, grateful man, whose little boy Sister Mona went to nurse through a fever. I had mistaken what she said, you see, and got up for nothing. But that’s the way it is with me, and the sooner I am superseded by somebody who can hear,.the better.” ECORNICLOOO SS (C(O) mn —_)