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

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

Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. 245 “Dear me!” exclaimed Janet, holding up the garment her mistress had taken off, ‘‘there seems a smell of soot about this dress! Ah, here it is, all over the white cuff! How can it have got there? Could I have flicked the sleeve into the grate as I shook it?” “Oh, never mind,” cried Mrs. Raven, dropping into a chair, and feeling as if a volume of cold water was engulfing her. ‘‘ Never mind that, Janet. Help me to bed, and bring me a glass of wine.” “ Don’t you think a drop of brandy might be better, ma’am ?” said the servant, compassionately. “It will revive you best.” “Anything you like,” said Mrs. Raven, ‘only bring it—and leave me—and don’t let me be disturbed till my son comes home.” The maid obeyed in alarmed silence. She brought as large a glass of brandy as she thought it reasonable for a lady to drink, especially one so abstemious as Mrs. Raven. Her mistress swallowed it at a mouthful, and lay down with her face to the wall. Janet Mackay shaded the candles, closed the door softly, and went back to her fellow servants. ‘The mistress was poorly the night,” she said, in the quaint idiom which she had kept through many years of English residence. ‘“Maybe she walked too far this evening ?” suggested Sims. ‘She seems worried,” said Janet ; “and a bit put about, asif she’d lost something, maybe. She wants the Squire to go to her directly he comes in. She asked whether you had been moving anything in the drawing-room to-day, Charity; and whether you were long about it.” “She did, did she?” retorted Charity, in a tone of defiance. And the next minute she got up and went away. James Sloam chanced to be present. He had some dim idea of a relationship between the old woman and himself. At any rate, she had been kind to him in his neglected childhood. But she kept him down, and he did not care to speak much before her. As soon as she closed the door his tongue was at liberty. ‘The mistress took her walk to the Pitchfork this evening,” he began to the others. ‘She went to tell them they ought not to keep the likes of that clear-voyer on respectable licensed premises. Old Worsfold got into a rare fright when he saw her come up ——” ‘* How do you know this, James ?” interrupted Mrs. Sims. “Giles told me, ma’am ; I saw him just nowin the lane. And it was very awkward, he says; for while Mrs. Raven stood trimming Worsfold and his wife about harbouring the woman, she came down right upon ’em. There was a bit of a shindy among ’em, and the mistress here she walked away with her head up ; and the clear-voyer, taking the change out of her gold piece, and wishing ’em a good day, followed after her. She put herself right in her path, and stood staring her in the face, and then whispered something to her and gave her head’a nod, and went off by way of the cross roads. Giles was peeping round the corner of the milking-shed, and he saw Mrs. CoOnniclooolks (S(O)