The Argosy — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

, Selina Radcliffe's Home. 35 be. Mr. Radcliffe, growing by degrees into a state of apathy as he got older, was completely under the dominion of Stephen. He did nct mean to be unkind to his wife: he just perceived nothing ; he was indifferent to all that passed around him: had they set fire to Selina’s petticoats before his eyes, he’d hardly have seen the blaze. Now and again Selina would try to make friends with Holt: but Holt, though never uncivil, had a way of throwing her off. And so, she lived on a cowed, broken-spirited woman, eating away her heart in silence. Selina Radcliffe had found out that there were worse evils in the world than poverty. She might have died then but for her boy. You never saw a nicer little fellow than he—that Francis Radcliffe. A bright, tractable, loving boy; with laughing blue eyes, and fair curls falling back from his pretty face. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen hated him. Their children, Tom and Lizzy, pinched and throttled him: but the lad took it all in good part, and had the sweetest temper imaginable. He loved his mother beyond telling, and she made him as gentle and nearly as patient as she was. Virtually driven from the parlour, except at meal times, their refuge was the Pine Room. There they wereunmolested. ‘There Selina edu- cated and trained him, doing her best to show him the way to the next world, as well as to fit him for this. | One day when he was about nine years old, Selina was up aloft, in the little room where he slept ; which had a better view than some of the rooms had, and looked out into the open country. It was snowy weather, and she caught sight of the two boys in the yard below, snow- balling each other. Opening the window to call Francis in—for he al- ways got into the wars when with Tom, and she had learnt to dread his being with him—she saw Stephen Radcliffe crossing from the barn. Suddenly a snow-ball took Stephen in the face. It came from Tom ; she saw that ; Francis was stooping down at the time, collecting material for a fresh missive. ‘Who flung that at me?” roared out Stephen, in a rage. Tom disclaimed all knowledge of it; and Stephen Radcliffe seized upon Francis, beating him shamefully. | “ Tt was not Francis,” called out Selina from the window, shivering at the sight ; for Stephen in his violence might sometime, as she knew, lame the lad. “ Its touching you was an accident; I could see that ; but it was not Francis who threw it.” The cold, rarefied air carried her words distinctly to the ear of Ste- phen. Holding Francis by one hand to prevent his escape, he told Mrs. Radcliffe that she was a liar, adding other polite epithets and a few oaths. And then he began pummelling the lad again. “ Come in, Francis !—Let him come in!” implored the mother, clasp- ing her hands in her bitter agony. ‘‘ Oh, is there no refuge for him and for me P” EORNICLOOKS. ECO