The Argosy — page 264: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherleigh. 247 he pass here with Uncle Francis, who was very kind to him. We three girls, silly things that we were, used to quarrel amicably which should call him sweetheart. He has continued his friendship with me unto this day ; coming down to visit me occasionally. I made a confidant of him during his last visit, telling him what I am now telling you, and I asked him to get this accomplished. He promised faithfully to do so, for our old friendship’s sake, and in remembrance of his obligations to Uncle Francis, who had been a substantial friend to him. It would not be difficult, he said, Mr. Grubb assenting —whom, by the way, he esteems greatly. Therefore, you will, I hope, at no very prolonged period after my death, see him reigning here, Sir Francis Netherleigh.” ‘Has Mr. Grubb assented ?” asked the Rector. Miss Margery shook her head and smiled. ‘ Mr. Grubb knows nothing whatever about the matter. He has no more idea that he will inherit Court Netherleigh than I had that I should inherit it before that revelation to me by Uncle Francis. Were I to say to him, ‘Guess who it 1s, of all the world, that will come in after me,’ he would no doubt guess every individual in it before himself, beginning with Lord Acorn. MHe will know nothing until .I am dead. I have written him a farewell letter, which will then reach him, explaining all things; just as I have written out a statement for the world, disclosing the commands laid upon me by Uncle Francis, lest I should be accused of caprice, and—possibly—Mr. Grubb of cupidity.” ““You are content to leave him your successor 2” ““ More than content. I look around and ask myself who else is so worthy. After Uncle Francis’s death I was not content. No, I confess it, Catherine had offended all our prejudices, and her child shared them in my mind. But I never thought of disputing the charge laid upon me, and my will was made in the boy’s favour. From time to time, as the years passed on, Mr. Pencot brought me reports of him—that he was growing up all that could be wished for. Still, I could not quite put away my prejudice; and whether I should have sought to make acquaintance with him, had chance not brought it about, I cannot say. I met him first at a railway- station “Did you!” cried Mr. Cleveland, who had never heard of that day’s meeting. “T was going down to Cheltenham with Annis and Marcus, and our train came to grief near Reading; the passengers had to get out while the damage, something to an axle, was tinkered up. Francis ‘Grubb was coming up from the Acorns’ place in Oxfordshire ; it was during the time he was courting Adela, and the accident to my train stopped his. I was sitting by the wayside disconsolately enough on my little wooden bonnet-box, when one of the nicest-looking and grandest men, for a young man,I ever saw, came up and politely CONnNICLOOKS.EO