The Argosy — page 284: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherleigh. 205 to the end of the season, and her pleasurable course was never checked. When they were preparing to return to the Grange, and her maid was driven wild with perplexity as to the stowing away of so extensive a wardrobe, and conjecturing that the carriage down of it would alone come to ‘‘something,” 1t occurred to Selina, as she sat watching, that the original cost would also come to “something.” Some hundreds, she feared, now she came to see the whole collection in a mass. “Of course I shall not let Oscar see the bill,” she soliloquised. “T’ll get it from madame before I leave: and then there’ll be no fear of its coming to him at the Grange.” Mrs. Dalrymple asked for the bill; and madame, under protest that there was no hurry in the world, promised to send it in, Selina was alone, sitting in the drawing-room by twilight, when the account was delivered to her; it was enclosed in a large thick envelope, with an imposing red seal. She opened it somewhat eagerly. ‘‘ What makes it such a bulk?” she thought. ‘‘Oh, I see; she has detailed the things.” Holding it close to the window, she looked at the bottom of the page, and saw 4,94. ‘Ninety-four pounds!” ejaculated Selina. ‘“‘What does madame mean? It must be more than that.” She lighted the little taper on her writing-table ; and then found she had been looking at one item only—the Venice point-lace for the decoration of a dress. So she turned the page and looked at the foot of the next. ‘Antique robe, lace, trimmings, and sapphire buttons, £125. Tush !” impatiently exclaimed Selina. With a rapid movement she turned the account over to the end, and gazed at the sum total; gazed at it, started at it, and recoiled from it. Three thousand and odd pounds, odd shillings, and no pence! What the odd pounds were, whether one, or whether nine hundred and ninety-nine, she did not catch in that moment of terror ; the first grand sum of three thousand absorbed her eyes and her faculties. And there floated over her a confused consciousness of other bills to come in: one from the jeweller’s, one for shawls, one for expensively-trimmed linen. ‘There was one shawl, real India— but she dared not think of that. ‘‘ Oscar will say I have been mad,” she groaned. No doubt he would. At that moment she heard his step, coming in from the dining- room, and turned sick. She crushed the bill in her right hand and thrust it down the neck of her dress. ‘Then she blew out the taper, and turned, with a burning brow and shrinking frame, to the window again, and stood there, apparently looking out. Selina had never attempted to sum up what she had bought. At odd moments she fad feared it might come to something like a thousand pounds. cConniclooolkks (SO) >