The Argosy — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

II2 The Story of Dorothy Grape. duced to straits, often and often went dinnerless. Mrs. Turk only got a portion of what was due to her by fits and starts. Mr. Mapping himself made light of troubles; they did not seem to touch him much ; he was always in spirits and always well dressed. ‘‘ Alick, you should draw a little of that money in the bank,” his wife ventured to suggest one day when Mrs. Turk had been rather troublesome. ‘*‘ We cannot go on like this.” | ‘Break in upon our nest-egg!” he answered. ‘Not if I know it, Dolly. Mrs. Turk must wait.” A little circumstance was to happen that gave some puzzle to Dolly. She had been married about fourteen months, and her husband was, as she believed, on his travels in Yorkshire, when Lord Mayor’s Day occurred. Mrs. Turk, a good woman in the main, and compassionating the loneliness of the young wife, offered to take her to see the show, having been invited to an upper window of a house in Cheapside. Of all the sights in the world Dolly quite believed that must be the greatest, and felt delighted. They went, took up their station at the window, and the show passed. If it had not quite come up to Dolly’s expectation, she did not say so. ‘‘A grand procession, is it not, Mrs. Mapping,” cried her com- panion, gazing after the tail of it with admiring eyes. “Very,” said Dolly. ‘I wonder—Good gracious !” she broke off, with startling emphasis, “‘there’s my husband !” “Where?” asked Mrs. Turk, her eyes bent on the surging crowd below. “There,” said Dolly, pointing with her finger; “there! He is arm-in-arm with two others. How very strange! It was only yester- day I got a letter from him from Bradford, saying he should be detained there for some time to come. How I wish he had looked pp mere 1° Mrs. Turk had failed to single him out amid the moving masses. And as Mr. Mapping did not make his appearance at home that evening, or for many evenings to come, she concluded that the young wife must have been mistaken. | When Mr. Mapping did appear, he said the same, telling Dolly she must have ‘‘seen double,” for that he had not been in London. Dolly did not insist, but she felt staggered and uncomfortable; she felt certain it was her husband she saw. How long the climax would have been postponed, or in what way it might have disclosed itself, but for something that occurred, cannot be conjectured. ‘This wretched kind of life went on until the next spring. Dolly was reduced to perplexity. She had parted with all the pretty trinkets her mother left her; she would live for days to- gether upon bread and butter and tears; and a most unhappy sus- picion had instilled itself into her mind—that the nest-egg no longer existed. But even yet she found excuses for her husband; she thought that all doubt might still be explained away. Mrs. Turk was very EOPMIE LOO; KS.EO) im