The Argosy — page 317: what you’re looking at

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

Parkwater. 303 CHAPTER IX. ‘THE ADVERTISEMENT IN THE °* TIMES.” In a desirable quarter of a fashionable winter watering-place, where the communication with London is speedy and oft, there sat, one morning, a lady and gentleman at breakfast in a room that faced the sea, Colonel and Lady Harriet Devereux. Upon his marnage he had repurchased into the army : hence his rise in military rank. Lady Harriet was plain—it has been already said—but the goodness of her face and its subdued look of sorrow rendered her an object of interest to a stranger. Colonel Devereux was plain too, far plamer than he used to be, with his disagreeable black eyes, and his dark, dissipated face. He looked older than his actual years; for which he may have been indebted to his irregular life and to his irregular temper. He was dressed in a flowered, crimson-silk dressing-zown, looking rather loose about the neck; and he lay back in an easy-chair, yawn- ing and twirling his great black whiskers. Something had-delayed the post that morning, including the newspapers. It was quite sufficient to put out the Colonel, His temper, never good, had grown almost unbearable. : Suddenly he took up his cup, drank what was in it, and pushed it from him with a jerk. His wife drew it towards her. “You need not give me any more of that trash.” ‘“‘If you would come in earlier and go to bed, you would feel more inclined for breakfast,” she observed, in a quiet tone, one that struggled not to show its long-subdued resentment. “It was four o'clock this morning.” | He did not condescend to reply, but leaned forward and pulled the bell. The servant answered it in hot haste: he knew his master. ‘‘ Bring my meerschaum.” ‘Oh, pray do not smoke in this room!” pleaded his wife, in alarm. “It makes me feel so sick.” “Tf you don’t like it you can go out of it,” wasthe civilreply. “My meerschaum—do you hear! What do you stand staring there for?” The servant did hear, and flew away. But a longer interval elapsed than his master thought necessary, and he had rung another violent peal when the man appeared. ‘The postman came, sir, and I waited to take the letters from him,” said the man, as he laid down the meerschaum, the Zimes, and some letters before his master. Glancing at the addresses of the latter, the Colonel flung two of them, with a most ungracious movement, to- wards his wife, opened the third, read it, and put it in the fire. Then he unfolded the Z7smes, and his wife took up the supplement. Her eye CORnniclooolkks (CO)