The Argosy — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

~~ The Story of Dorothy Grape. 109 tell it you, sir. It is some time since I saw ahome face; and I have often pictured to myself some kind friendly face of those old happy days looking at me while I told it. Different days from these.” “These cannot be much to boast of,” repeated the Squire. “It must be a precarious sort of living.” ‘Of course it fluctuates,” she said. ‘‘ Sometimes my rooms are full, at others empty. One has to put the one against the other and strive to tide over the hard days. Mr. Pitt 1s very good to me in recom- mending the rooms to medical students; he 1s a good-natured man.” “Oh, indeed ! Listen to that, Johnny! Pitt good-natured! Rather a loose man, though, I fancy, ma’am.” | “What, Mr. Pitt? Sir, I don’t think so. He has a surgery close by, and gets a good bit of practices He ——” The rest was interrupted by Mr. Pitt himself; he came to say we might go up to Mr. Brandon. We had reason to think ill enough of Pitt in regard to the Radcliffe business; but the Squire could not tackle him about the past off-hand, it not being just the time or place for it. Later, when he did so, it was found that we had been mis- judging the man. Pitt had not joined Stephen Radcliffe in any con- spiracy ; and the false letter, telling of Frank’s death at Dr. Dale’s, had not been written by him. So we saw that it must have been concocted by Stephen himself. “ Any way, if I did write such a letter, I retained no consciousness of it afterwards,” added Pitt, with candour. ‘‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Todhetley, that I gave way to drink at that time, and I know I was often not myself. But I do not think it likely that I wrote it; and as to joining Mr. Radcliffe in any conspiracy against his brother why I would not do such a thing, drunk or sober, and I never knew it had been done.” ‘You have had the sense to pull up,” cried the Squire, in reference to what Pitt had admitted. “Yes,” answered Pitt, in a voice hardly above a whisper. ‘ And I never think of what I might have become by this time, save for the pulling up, but I thank God.” It is not, however, with Mr. Pitt, his virtues or his failings, that this paper concerns itself, but with the history of Dorothy Grape. We must take it up from the time Dorothy arrived in London with her husband, .Alick Mapping, after their marriage at Worcester, as already told of. The-sum of three hundred pounds, owned by Dolly, passed into Mr. Mapping’s possession on the wedding-day, for she never suggested such a thing as that it should be settled on herself. The proceeds, arising from the sale of the furniture, were also trans- mitted to him by the auctioneer. Thus he had become the pro- prietor of Dolly, and of all her worldly goods. After that, he and she faded out of Worcestershire memory, and from the sight of Worces- tershire people—save for one brief meeting, to be mentioned pre- sently. GOMIIGIOOKS (CO)