The Argosy — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

242 In the Dead of Night. ‘No idea whatever, papa. If the quantity of her luggage is anything ~ to go by, I should say that her stay is likely to be a long one.” “T hope not, with all my heart,” sighed the Squire. Mrs. McDermot, in truth, was not a lady who ever troubled herself to make her presence agreeable to those with whom she might be stay- ing. Consideration for the comfort of others was a thought that never entered her mind. From the day of her arrival at Pincote she began to interfere with the existing arrangements of the house; finding fault with everything; changing this, altering the other, and evidently determined to have her own way in all. The first thing she did was to find fault with her bedroom, although it was one of the pleasantest apartments in the house, and had been especially arranged by Jane herself with a view to her aunt’s comfort. But it was not the best bed- room—the state bedroom—therefore Mrs. McDermot would have none of it. Into the state bedroom, a gloomy apartment fronting the north, which was never used above once or twice in half a dozen years, she migrated at once with all her belongings. Her next act, she being with- out a maid of her own at the time, was to induct one of the Pincote servants into that office, taking her altogether from her proper duties and not permitting her to do a stroke of work for anyone but herself. Then she talked her brother into allowing the dinner hour to be altered from six to half-past seven; so that, as the Squire grumbled to himself, the cloth was hardly removed before it was time to go to bed. ‘Then the Squire must never appear at dinner without a dress coat and a white tie—articles which, of late years, he had been tacitly allowed to dispense with when dining en famille. A white cravat especially was to him an abomination. He never could tie the knot properly, and after crumpling three or four, and throwing them across the room in a rage, Jane’s services would generally have to be called into requisition as a last resource. One other infliction there was which the Squire found it very difficult to bear patiently. After dinner, when there was no particular company at Pincote, it was an understood thing that the Squire should have the dining-room to himself for half an hour in order that he might enjoy the post-prandial snooze which long custom had made almost a necessity with him. But this was an arrangement that failed to meet with the approbation of Mrs. McDermot: she insisted that the Squire should either accompany the ladies, or, otherwise, she herself would keep him company in the dining-room ; and woe be to him if he dared so much as close an eye for five seconds | ! It was, “Where are your manners, sir? I’m thoroughly ashamed of you;” or else, ‘Falling asleep, sir, in the presence of a lady ? a clodhopper could do no more than that !” till the Squire felt as if his life were being slowly tormented out of him. - Nor did Jane fail to come in for a share of her aunt’s strictures. Mrs. McDermot evidently looked upon her as little more than a child. comicbooks (E(0)