The Argosy — page 351: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherleigh. CO Ss) O th: A Pel BR» Xe TVs LADY ADELA. ‘* How sly Mary has been!” The above exclamation spoken by Lady Adela Grubb in a kind of resentful tone, as she read a letter while sipping her coffee, caused her husband to look up. He sat at the opposite end of the breakfast table, attractive with its silver and its flowers and its beautiful Worcester china. ‘WAte you speaking of your sister Mary?” he asked. ‘‘ What has she done ?” Any answer to this question Lady Adela did not condescend to give. Unless the tossing of the letter across the table to him could be called one—and she did it with a gesture of scorn. ‘The letter, a short one, came from Miss Upton, of Court Netherleigh. ‘My DEAR ADELA,—I have a little business to transact in. London to-morrow, and will take luncheon with you at one o’clock, if. quite convenient. Tell your husband, with my kind regards, that I hope to see him also—if he can spare an hour from that exacting place of his, Leadenhall Street. So I am to have your sister Mary as a neighbour, after all !—Your sincere friend, “ MARGERY UPTON.” ‘‘ Which means, I presume, that Mary is to marry Cleveland,” remarked Mr. Grubb, as he read the concluding sentence. ‘Stupid thing! I told her weeks ago she was flirting with him.” ‘Nay, not flirting, Adela. » Cleveland is not capable of that.” Adela tossed: her head... How lovely she looked! fair as the fresh summer morning. “She was flirting, though. -And he would flirt if he were not too old. Parsons, as a rule, flirt more than laymen. She must be hard up for a husband to take /zm. He has a house full of children!” | _ “J daresay she likes him,” said Mr. Grubb. “Oh, nonsense! One tlie point could be urged in his favour— that he isa patrician.” “ That he is what ?” cried Mr. Grubb, who was drinking his coffee at the moment, and did not hear the word. ‘““A patrician. _ Not a plebeian.” The offensive stress laid by Adela on the last word, the marked scorn sitting on her lips, brought a flush to her husband’s brow. Nothing seemed to afford her so much gratification as the throwing out these lance-shafts to Mr. Grubb; on what she: was pleats to term his plebeian origin. “Do you wish for more coffee ?”’ she asked, ungraciously. “No. I have not time for it. I must ‘nna the best of my way into the city if I am to get back to luncheon,” EORDIECLOOOKS EO)