The Argosy — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherlegh. 89 world she should have guéssed him last, but she did not say so. She was of a cautious nature, and rarely spoke on impulse. The silence of surprise was broken by aringing laugh from Adela, one laugh following upon another. It seemed as though she could not cease. When had they seen Adela so merry? ° “JT cannot help it,” she said apologetically, ‘‘but it did strike me as sounding so absurd. ‘Lady Grace Grubb!’ Forgive me, Gracie.” ‘Tt will not bear so aristocratic a sound as Lady Grace Chenevix,” retorted the mother, tartly, ‘‘ but remember the old saying, ‘ What’s in a name P’ It is you who are absurd, Adela.” € BeAlP. TE RV. LADY ADELA. ‘¢] HAVE opened the matter to Grace, and there’ll be no trouble with her,” began Lady Acorn to her husband the next morning, halting to say it as she was going into her dressing-room. ‘‘No girl knows better than she on which side her bread is buttered P ” “To Grace!” cried the Earl, who was only half awake and spoke from the bedclothes. ‘‘ Do you mean about Grubb ?” ‘Now what else should I mean?” ‘“ But it is not Grace he wants. It’s Adela.” ‘* Adela,” echoed Lady Acorn, aghast. “T don’t think he’d have Grace at a gift—or any of them but Adela. And so you told ser, making her dream of wedding- rings and orange-blossoms! Poor Gracie, what a sell!” “Adela will never have him,” broke forth the Countess, in high vexation, at herself, her husband, Mr. Grubb, and all the world. ‘“* Never.” “Oh, nonsense, she must be talked into it. With five girls it’s something to get off one.” “ Adela is not a girl to be ‘talked into’ anything. She’d like a duke. She is the vainest of them all.” “Look at the amount of devilry this wiil patch up,” urged the Earl, impressively, as he lifted his head from the pillow. “If he does not — get Adela, he is going to sue for his over-due bonds.” “You have no business with bonds, over-due or under-due,’ snapped his wife. ‘‘I declare I have nothing but worry in this life.” “YT shall get the two thousand pounds from him, if this comes off; you shall have five hundred of it, as I told you; and my debt to him he will cancel. ‘The man’s mad after Adela.” “But she’s not mad after him,” retorted Lady Acorn. “Make her so,” advised the Earl. And her ladyship went forth to her dressing-room, and allowed some of her superfluous temper to explode on her unoffending maid, who stood there waiting for her. ) cConniclooolkks (C(O)