The Argosy — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

174 Mrs. Raven's Leimpiation, ing place,” suggested the butler. ‘‘She needs a change; she has seemed poorly ever since the Squire died.” ‘What did she go to London for on Saturday?” cried Sims. ‘To see a house agent, perhaps? She seemed to have been looking for something, I thought, when she came nome; and to have got downcast because she did not get it.” “It’s more likely she’s going to make changes here,” hazarded Fanny, the only young domestic present; ‘ get brisker servants, or something. How would you like ¢ha¢, Mrs. Sims?” ‘“T don’t think that,” put in Budd: “hold your silly tongue, girl.” “Well,” said the girl, pertly, “it is hardly likely the changes that are said to be afloat out of doors, will stop there.” “They are to go on briskly enough there, I fancy,” admitted the butler. ‘It’s said that one of the first to be sent off the estate will be Eldred Sloam.” ‘‘What, out of his cottage !” cried the housekeeper. Mr. Budd nodded. “I heard the master say as much to Mr. Toynbee on Saturday when I was waiting on them at lunch.” Charity set down her cup of tea and gave a little cough, as if she had narrowly escaped choking. “It was not you who waited at lunch on Saturday,” she said to the butler, snappishly; ‘it was James Sloam.” “Tt was I at first—until James came in. As to Sloam, he’d not be a loss to anybody if he did go: unless it was to James. And not to him, either, that I see. That the lad has grown up a good and decent lad, though a bit soft, is no thanks to his father. A nice example /e has set him!” “You are right there, Mr. Budd,” assented Mrs. Sims. ‘“ James takes after his ‘mother, poor body. She was a plain girl, but as true-hearted as you'd wish. She was in the still-room here when I came first; one of those quiet girls that don’t get noticed much. Eldred Sloam used to be coming here, after her, I thought; and there was something about the man that I did not lke, handsome though he was. ‘Don’t you have aught to say to him, Jane,’ I said to her; ay, more than once. But in spite of all I could do or say, the silly girl married him.” “Oh,” flippantly remarked Fanny. ‘Pity is akin to love, they Say.” ‘Pity is the back-door of love, I say,” retorted Mrs. Sims, “ and it’s not the best of characters that enter that way. And so poor Jane found to her cost. She had to put up with Eldred Sloam for eleven years, with his ill-doings and his temper, and all that while she never said a true word against him in anger, nor a false one of praise out of pride. JI was with her when she died, poor body, and I’ve always taken an interest in her boy James for her sake. It’s: not much his father has taken, more shame for him.” “He is a rare good-looking man yet, / think, is Eldred Sloam,” ECOMMIC LOCO <S,6©