The Argosy — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

132 MADGE’S SACRIFICE. By E. M. ALFORD. “« T SAY, Kit, isn’t this cozy ?” “ Awfully so!” responded the curly-headed youth appealed to, taking a pipe out of his pocket, and stroking complacently its highly polished surface. The young people were ensconced on two crimson-cushioned settees, within one of those dear old open chimneys, so rare nowadays, with logs blazing brightly on the polished steel dogs between them. A very favourite resort of any of the family, when they could indulge in a firelight chat. The room on which the bright beams played so fitfully was most picturesque. Rather low, with great beams showing across the ceiling ; oak-panelled walls, oaken tables and chairs of vanous forms, and a polished oak skirting to the floor, with a well-worn Turkey-carpet in the centre. The windows were heavily mullioned, and rejoiced in quaint old tapestry curtains, in keeping with the quaintness of the whole room. “Yes,” went on the girl, meditatively, “I don’t believe there ever was such a dear homely home as ours. You can’t think how often the thought of this chimney-corner has kept me right at school, Kit, when I have been inclined to throw my lesson-books out of window, and scamper off on the moors. I do so hate poring over books when the sun’s shining !” | } Kit shrugged his broad shoulders, and said, lazily: ‘There, don’t go lecturing me any more, Madge, for of course it’s double as hard for us men.” (Kit was barely twenty.) ‘‘ Girls are made to keep quiet. But what’s the good of having a broad chest and strong limbs, I should like to know, if the one is to get narrow, and the others limp, poring over books ?”’ And Kit stood fup and stretched himself, knocking down an imagr- nary foe, with a fist, on either side. Madge gazed up at him admiringly, but said quietly: “If I were a man, I’d work, though, Kit, at something or other. Do you know, I’m half ashamed of you, sometimes, when I see you lounging there so contentedly, while that dear father of yours is working so hard in his dull little study. If you don’t pass, this time, I shall set you down as a dunce, or worse, when you know how they all pinch at home to keep you at college.” ‘Talking of that, Madge, I want your advice,” said Kit, in the most affable manner. ‘I’ve got myself into a bit of a scrape by not paying my tailor at Oxford. The fellow wouldn’t wait, you see, and there were one or two other pressing trifles; so I borrowed a few CORNICE OOS (GO)