The Argosy — page 196: what you’re looking at

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

Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. 179 * That cottage of Sloam’s was the laundry in those days ; and where there is a laundry there is generally a laundry-maid, you know, and she is sometimes pretty. Perhaps I had better tell you the’story from the beginning.” “Tf you would. I have felt puzzled sometimes at these allu- sions.” “Squire Eldred Raven, a fine, handsome man as was ever seen, I hear, but wild and careless as to conduct, lived here, a bachelor. His brother, Captain Raven, was with his regiment in India; news came that he was killed in battle, and the Squire here wrote to tell the widow she had better come home—her little son would be his heir, you see, unless he married, himself. ‘The poor lady, weakened by sorrow, was not strong enough to undertake the voyage, but she sent the little boy, Henry. Charity Hale, a young woman then, be- came his nurse, and the Squire grew very fond of the child is “TI beg your pardon for interrupting the story,” spoke Janet. “That child, Henry—was it our late master who has just died ?” “To be sure it was. After a bit, the lady started from India with her other child, a baby-girl, but she died on the voyage, poor thing, and only the little girl arrived—Miss Millicent, she that’s Mrs. Connell now. Well, after a time, a younger sister of Charity Hale’s came into service here, to do light things—not rough work. Never such a con- trast hardly seen, I’ve heard, as there was between her and Charity. Charity, plain in face, crabbed, prim, and with all the ways of a servant ; Salome, pretty and bright and ladylike, though always idle and flighty. Some whim took Charity after a bit to put her sister into the laundry, to learn to iron, and Salome went there to the old widow Sloam, who was head of it. By-and-by, people began to talk. They asked what it was that Squire Eldred wanted at the laundry-house in an evening—for he would be seen going there. Well, it was the old tale, Janet ; and the next thing that appeared at the laundry was a baby—this very Eldred Sloam.” “Eldred Sloam? I do not understand.” “The poor child had no right to any name in particular, you see, so they called him that for want of a better, and it was like his mother’s Christian name. It was said that Charity took him to church and had him named Eldred—which was like her impudence. She did it out of spite, perhaps; for she really loved Salome, and the discovery drove her nearly mad. Salome never held up her head again ; the disgrace had tried her. Before she was anything like well, she left the cottage, running away from it one morning betimes, escaping from Squire Eldred and his wiles. The Squire went in search of her, and found her; in London, as was said, but nobody knew where for certain. In a month or two’s time she was back again at the old cottage with Mrs. Sloam. ‘The laundry had then been removed to the back premises here, where it is still, and Mrs. Sloam had the cottage without the work, and attended to the baby, CoOnniclooolks (S(O)