The Argosy — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

2 Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. “We must go through the house from top to bottom,” said Mrs. Connell. She could not keep a certain uneasiness out of her tone. “There are no burglars in it, I suppose,” cried her husband, hastily. ‘ Did you hear anything—save the cry, Milicent? ” ‘Nothing but the cry,” she replied. “And what did you suppose there was for anybody to see?” pur- sued the minister. ‘Better go through the house,” she answered. ‘‘ Lose no time. Any of you not well wrapped up must get a shawl,” added the careful mother. Philip turned into his room and brought out a box of matches, with which he re-lit the gas at every burner they passed. “ Let us have plenty of light on the subject, at any rate,” said he. Everything in the drawing-room lay exactly as they had left it an hour before, but the apartment had the strange ghastliness and chill common to familiar places unexpectedly entered at midnight. ‘‘ Are the outer doors fast?” asked Mrs. Connell. And Philip and Percy went together to ascertain, while she herself lifted aside the curtains and tried the bolts of the windows: which were quite secure. Half-instinctively she threw the curtains wide, as if she did not want to see more of the garden than the rest could. There it lay, empty and yellow in the moonlight. ‘Do you see anyone loitering there ?” she asked. ‘‘ Hardly likely, mother,” spoke Philip, who had just got back from — looking to the doors. ‘Well, Philip, somebody was in the garden at the time of the scream—or the moment before it,” answered his mother. “Eh, what’s that?” cried the minister. ‘Somebody in the garden ?” ‘Midnight owls who had stolen in to have a peep at the trees,” lightly suggested Philip, attaching no importance to what his mother had said. ‘¢And the scream was within the house, I am quite sure,” cried Louisa. “Stay a bit—how you children talk !” reproved their father. ‘“ The scream was in the house, that is certain. The question is, did any one of you scream ? ”—looking round generally. But Mr. Connell got no assenting answer. ‘Well, then,” he rejoined, “‘if it was none of us that screamed, some one must be in the house that we know nothing of.” ‘“Were any of you awake—besides myself and Miss Cleare?” asked Mrs. Connell, glancing around at the group. ‘“‘ Were you, Mrs. Raven?” she quickly continued, seeing what had escaped her notice before, that her sister-in-law had appeared in unruffled order, in the same secure black robe of rich silk and crape which she had worn during the evening. “T was quite awake,” replied Mrs. Raven. “I had sat up COMICLOOOKS. EO