The Argosy — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

32 Selina Radcliffe's Tome. implacably with the old man, for his money was at his own disposal : _ and, if incensed too greatly, he might possibly take the extreme step of leaving it away from him. But Stephen Radcliffe’s heart was good to turn his father out of doors there and then, and appropriate the money to himself at once, if he only had the power. “ No fool like an old fool!” he again muttered. ‘‘ Where zs tae cat?” “‘ Where’s who?” cried Mr. Radcliffe, looking up from his wheat. “The woman you’ve gone and made yourself a world’s spectacle with.” “Ste, my lad, this won’t do. Keep a civil tongue in your head, as I bid you; or go where you may makeita foul one. For by heaven!” —and Mr. Radcliffe’s passion broke out and he rose from his seat menacingly—“ I'll not tolerate this.” Stephen hardly ever remembered his father to have shown passion before. He did not like it. They had gone on so very quietly together, until that quarrel just spoken of, and Stephen had had his own way, and ruled, so to say, in all things, for his father was easy, that this outbreak was something new. It might not do to give further provocation then. He was standing as before in sullen silence, his hands in his trousers’ pockets and the skirts of his short brown velveteen coat thrown back, and Mr. Radcliffe had sat down to the bags again, when the door opened, and some one came in. Stephen turned. He saw a pretty young girl in black, with some books in her delicate hands. Just for an instant — he wondered who the young girl could be : and then the thought flashed over him that “ the woman ” his father had married might have a grown up daughter. Selina had been unpacking her trunks upstairs, and arranging her things in their drawers and closets. She hesitated on her way to the book-case when she saw the stranger. “ My son Stephen, Selina. Ste, Mrs.. Radcliffe.” Stephen Radcliffe for a moment forgot his sullenness and his temper. He did nothing but stare. Was his father playing a joke on him? He had pictured the new wife (though he knew not why) as a woman of mature age: this was a child. As she timidly held out the only hand she could extricate from the load of books, he saw the wedding- ring on her finger. Meeting her hand ungraciously and speaking never a word, he turned to the window again. Selina put the books down in a stack to be disposed in their shelves later, and quitted the room. “This is even worse folly than I dreamed of,” began Stephen, facing his father. ‘‘She’s nothing but a child.” | “She is close upon twenty.” “Why, there may be children!” broadly roared outStephen. “ You must have been mad when you did such a deed as this.” , ‘“Mad or sane, it’s done, Stephen. And I should do it again to- morrow without asking your leave. Understand that.” Gomichbooks. com