The Argosy — page 357: what you’re looking at

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

336 Court Netherleigh. Oh, we are friendly enough—dquite so,” he lightly answered, angry with himself for not being able to suppress the flush that rose at the question. ‘Is that a new dress you have on, Mary? It is marvellously pretty.” “Tf her child had but lived!” sighed Mrs. Lynn, alluding to Lady Adela. “Quite new ; on new to-day ; and I am very glad you admire it,” gaily answered Mary, as she spread out the dress with both hands, and turned herself about on her brother’s dull red carpet for inspec- tion. She was as thankful to drown the other subject as he was : she knew, unhappily, more about it than her mother. “I am going out on a visit, sir, so of course I must have some pretty things.” ‘Going where P”’ “To Lawn Cottage, at Netherleigh. Mrs. Dalrymple wants me—she is lonely there. I can only spare her a week though; it will not do to leave mamma for longer. Alice is at Lady Sarah Hope’s, you know, and Selina is in town, the gayest of the gay.” ‘Rather too gay, I fancy,” remarked Mr. Grubb. ‘ Mother,” he added, turning from his sister, ‘‘I have just left your friend of early life—Miss Upton. She enquired after you.” “Very good of her!” retorted Mrs. Lynn, proudly and stiffly. “I do not care to be spoken to of Margery Upton, as you know, Francis. She—and others—voluntarily severed all connection between us in those early years. It pained me more than you, or anyone else, will ever know; but it is over and done with, and I do not - willingly recall it, Or them, to my memory.” Ah! that separation might have brought keen pain to Mrs. Lynn in early days, but not so cruelly keen as the pain something else was bringing to her son in these later ones. As Francis Grubb, his visitors departed, took his place at his desk, and strove to apply his mind to his business, he found it difficult. Twice to-day had his wife’s behaviour to him been remarked upon—by Miss Upton and by his mother. Was it, could it be the fact, that the unhappiness of his home, the miserable relations obtaining between himself and his wife, had become patent to all the world? ‘The draught had already been rising to a pretty good height in his cup of bitterness; this would fill it to the brim. CHAPTER XV. THE DAY OF RECKONING. ‘Wuat an idiot I have been!” soliloquised Selina Dalrymple. ‘And what a cat that Damereau 1s!” The above pretty speech—not at all suitable for pretty lips—was given vent to by Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple on her return from that morn- ing visit to her milliner, when the latter had wholly refused to listen to reason, and both had lost their courtesy. EORNIELOOOKS .~E®