The Argosy — page 347: what you’re looking at

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

326 Court Netherleigh. ‘*T hope you will find it, Selina. How much do you say you owe?” ‘“ There’s four thousand to Damereau, and ‘‘Who is Damereau ? ” ‘Goodness me, Alice; if you never did spend a season in town, you ought to know who she is, without asking. Madame Damereau’s the great milliner and dressmaker ; everybody goes to her.” ©] remember now., Lady Sarah has her things elsewhere.” Then I owe for India shawls, and lace, and jewels, and furs and things. I owe sixthousand pounds if I owe a farthing.” ‘“What a sum!” echoed Alice, aghast. ‘““‘Six thousand pounds ?” “* Ay, you may well repeat it!~ Which of the queens was it who said that when she died the name of Calais would be found engraven on her heart? Mary, I think. Were I to die, those two words, ‘six thousand,’ would be found engraven on mine. They are never absent from me. I see them written up in figures in my dreams; I see them always; in the-ball-room, at the opera, in the park, they are buzzing in my ears; when I wake from my troubled sleep they come rushing over me, and; I start from my. bed to escape them, Jam not at all sure that it won’t turn out to be seven thousand,” candidly added Mrs. Dalrymple. “You must have:dressed in silver and gold,” said poor Alice. ‘““No: only in things that cost it: such things as these,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, pulling at-her-bonnet with both hands, in irritation so pas- slonate that it was torn in two. “Oh, pray! pray!” Alice interposed, but too late to prevent the catastrophe. ‘‘ Your beautiful bonnet! Selina, it must have cost three or four guineas. What a waste!” ; “Tush !” peevishly replied Mrs. Dalrymple, flinging the wrecks to the middle of the room. ‘/A bonnet more: or less—what-does it. matter P” Alice sat in thought ; looking very pained, very perplexed. ‘“‘ It appears to me that you: are on a wrong course altogether, Selina. The past is past ; but you might strive to redeem it.” _ ‘¢ Strive against a whirlpool,” sarcastically responded Selina. ‘You are getting deeper into it: by your own admission, you are having new things every day. It is adding fuel to fire.” “T can’t go naked.” “But you must have a large stock of dresses by you.” “Do you think I would appear in last year’s things? Ican’t and I won’t. You do not understand these matters, Alice.” “Then you ought not to ‘appear’ at all. You should have stopped at the Grange.” | ‘As good be in a nunnery. Once you have been initiated into the delights ofa London season, you can but come back to it. F; Bey my stopping at that mouldy old Grange !” ON ‘What is to’ be the end of all this?” lamented Alice. a ‘‘ Ah, that’s it! The End. One does not know, you see, how seon ECORNIEOOOKS. CO