The Argosy — page 238: what you’re looking at

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

226 PARKWATER. BY THE AUTHOR OF “East LYNNE.” one GOO CHAPTER V. CAPTAIN DEVEREUX. HERE were signs one evening of a reception at Parkwater. Rooms were lighted, and carriages whirled up, bringing -guests. Not many guests, for the locality did not produce them, and they mostly had to come:from a distance. Still, when all were assembled, what with old and young, it was a goodly show. Rose was nine years old that day, and they were keeping her birthday: children and parents were equally welcome. The governess’s eyes and senses were dazzled. On this occasion she made one with the rest. Inordinately alive to the value of rank, to the pomp and pride of courtly life, the result chiefly of her childhood’s researches in the Caterpillar pages, her expectations had been raised to an extraordinary pitch when about to enter the Earl of Tennygal’s family. Once there, she had found herself immeasurably disappointed. In all, save the titles, it might have been taken for a private gentle- man’s household. Miss May had anticipated something far more grand; though precisely what, she could not herself have stated: whether the carpets were to be of cloth of gold, or the every-day dinner-plates of silver. But, on certain occasions, none knew better how to hold their rank, and to display its appurtenances, than Lord and Lady Tennygal: this was one, and Sophia May, who had never before witnessed the social unions of courtly life, forgot that she was only a subordinate, and thought herself in the seventh heaven. She was standing looking at the quadrille in the children’s room, when Captain Devereux approached her. ‘Where is it that you hide yourself, Miss May?” he demanded, his voice drowned by the music. ‘I have been in this house going on for three weeks, and have hardly met with you as many times, It would have been like three months had you not been mn it.” The blush of gratified vanity rose to Sophia May’s face. Captain Devereux, brother to a countess, and son to the Right Honourable Sir Archibald Devereux, her Majesty’s Home Secretary, bore to her mind an exalted charm. And besides that, in the very few meetings they had held, she had felt herself irresistibly attracted to him. Her ecomniclooolkks _ (CO)