The Argosy — page 322: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Arabella. 305 ‘My dear niece!” began the Earl, and was fain to stop. She had gone into one of her passions, and was past listening. “Take one step toward meddling with me, or anything that con- cerns me, now or in the future, and I will make you long to emigrate in a body to some South Sea island, where the Grahame name never was heard of,” cried she, in her clearest, most deliberate voice, which sounded as hard as iron. ; New expostulations from the Earl, outcries from the women, threats from the men. The Grahame blood was well up on all sides. But Lady Arabella conquered. She stung each one of them neatly in turn, she covered the group with confusion, and paralyzed it with wrath. ‘Do this if you dare—mind, if you dare! JI am Helena Faulcon- bridge’s granddaughter! Some of you remember her, and were in the castle the night she set it on fire to punish this wonderful family for its insolence. I have as much courage as she had, and more brains. Til do worse than burn you in your beds, my cousins !” The women wept, the men said short words under their breath ; but standing there in their midst, cold and white, the girl looked so much like the portraits of the dreaded ancestress, whose name had scarcely been mentioned aloud for ten years, that they were struck dumb. She saw her advantage. “If you presume to interfere,” she went on, and her words cut like hail-stones, ‘‘if one among you, from Lord Faulconbridge down to the poorest, neediest, laziest of the name—who prefers to bea cringing dependent to earning his living like an honest man—has the intolerable impertinence to meddle in this matter, I will write letters to the news- papers in London and Paris denying this grand family’s authority to act. And if you use my name again, I will bring an action against you all in a court of justice.” And, with that, out of the room swept the Lady Arabella. For three days she made their waking hours torture by the pitiless lash of her tongue, all the time appearing in her sweetest, gayest mood, and agonized their rest at night. One had the nightmare, another had the nightmare ; which disturbed the house with hideous cries. Every- body rushed frantically through the galleries in costumes more pic- turesque than decent, mad with fears that the girl possessed by the spirit of old Helena had set fire to the illustrious mansion. ‘Lady Arabella summoned her faithful Mocourt, her private maid and men, and with scant leave-taking to the Earl, and none whatever for the rest of the clan, she departed. Secret intelligence had reached her that the Marquis de Cherville was coming to England; and though not in the least disposed to yield the conflict, she wanted a short armistice. . So she and her train floated over to Switzerland, and for a time she was left in peace. But Mocourt’s passion for letter-writing, and her VOL. XVIII. x COMIELO©O SS} CO am