The Argosy — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

162 Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. “Heyday, young lady!” cried Philip, ‘where did you get so much knowledge of the world?” ‘“T have had the pleasure of your acquaintance for a long time, sir,” she retorted, with an arch curtsey. She was certainly a handsome young woman, with her regular features, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair. She was well- dressed too, in a fashionably cut velveteen robe, with stiff frills at the throat and wrists. And yet, as Frank looked at her, a strange expression of disfavour crept across his face. Her very beauty and elegance only reminded him of the barmaid at the luncheon rooms which Philip Connell frequented, and whose pert familiarity had been very objectionable to one accustomed to the kindly respect- fulness of the Raven maid-servants. ‘The veneer might be a little thicker and smoother in Evelyn’s case, but surely beneath lay the same coarse-grained nature, with all its vulgar self-appraisement and greed and falsity. Frank did not think these things: he only felt them—only reflected how different this girl was from that other girl he had met in the Ravenstoke lanes. It was one of the blessings of his simple nature that it had acute instincts. ‘You might all leave me my hopes for a day or two, at any rate,” she said, pouting. ‘Just because my sun seems peeping out, the clouds about me must begin to rain! Even our abigail, Mrs. Davies, has passed the day in a state of damp distress: which I am asked to believe arises solely from her fear of losing me! I believe she is always miserable, and is only glad of any excuse for letting it out.” ‘“When you know poor Mary Is so nervous and weak-minded,” said Miss Agate, ‘‘you should have told her nothing till you were sure there was something to tell.” *‘ Dear me,” cried Evelyn, “I thought it was a good opportunity for letting her exercise her powers of dreams and signs and omens. And I was right too: she began directly we got in from the lawyer’s office, telling me she must have fallen asleep over the kitchen fire, for she had had a dream.” ‘Did she relate it ?” asked Philip. “Oh yes,” said Evelyn: ‘Sit ran that my people were discovered, and that, after all, nobody really belonged to me but my mother, and she was only a poor woman. And she said she distinctly saw me and my mother standing in front of each other in the dream, just as she and I were standing at that moment, and in her eagerness to see how I would act and behave, she awoke.” “Poor Mary Davies!” cried Miss Agate, ‘she has always been very fond of Evelyn. She was with me, you see, when I opened the door and found the baby on the step: we found her, as may be said, together. I never shall forget the state of excitement she went into: it was her way. And when once I had made up my mind to adopt the little girl, she seemed to think that, as our own child had EORNICLOOKS (E) m