The Argosy — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherleigh. 173 “And therefore towards the end of life sickness comes to us. I said so this afternoon to your son. We quarrel and fight and take vengeance on one another in our hot-headed days; but when the blood chills with years and the world is fading from us, we see what our crooked ways have been worth.” “You were all very bitter with me for marrying Christopher Grubb, Margery ; and you took care to let me know it. Uncle Francis—as we used to call Sir Francis Netherleigh, though without the slightest right to do so—was the most bitter of all.” “Just as Elizabeth Acorn’s girls call me ‘ Aunt’ in these later years,” remarked Miss Upton. ‘‘ Yes, Uncle Francis was very angry. He thought you had thrown yourself away.” “Elizabeth Acorn has never condescended to take the slightest notice of me. Although my son has married her daughter, she has never, I believe, said to him so much as ‘Is your mother well?’ she has never given him the smallest intimation that she remembers we were friends and companions in early life.” ‘Betsy always had her crotchets; and they don’t diminish with age,” returned Miss Upton. ‘‘She may be called a disappointed woman ; and disappointment seldom renders anyone more genial.” Mrs. Lynn did not understand. ‘“‘ Disappointed in what way ?” “Tn her husband. Not in himself, but in his means. When Betsy married him, it was to enter, as she supposed, upon a career of unlimited wealth, ease and splendour. Instead of that, she found him to be the most reckless of men as regards money, spending all before him, and her life has been one of almost perpetual embarrassment. You little think what shifts she has been some- times put to. It has soured her, Catherine.-——-What a noble man your son is,” added the speaker, after a brief pause. “One ina thousand.” “And what a miserable mistake he made in wedding Adela Chenevix!” returned Mrs. Lynn with emotion. ‘She makes him the most wretched wife. He does not open his lips to me, he never will do it; but I can see what a blighted life his is—and I hear others speak of it. I cannot help thinking that he is in some especial trouble with her at the present moment, else why does he remain down here, now that I am better?” “So, they have not thought fit to tell his mother,” reflected Margery Upton. Neither would she tell her. “You are happy in your children, Catherine. Of your son the. world may be proud—and is. As to your daughter, she is one of the sweetest girls I know.” “Yes, so far as I go, Iam truly happy in my children,” assented Mrs. Lynn. ‘‘It is a wonderful consolation. But happiness does not attend them. Francis we have spoken of. And poor Mary: lost her l.ver, her betrothed husband, Robert Dalrymple, by a dreadful fate, as you know. She will never marry.” GOnilGaooks (C©)