The Argosy — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

£0 Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. “Oh, I’d like to do what I can to serve or please anybody,” said Frank, simply. “I can’t promise not to burst out laughing in the lady’s face. When are we to go?” “Now,” said Philip. ‘‘ No time like the present.” As the two young men passed through the hall, they heard voices in the drawing-room, and Philip paused. For these were familiar Coltburn voices, which he had not yet heard during his present visit to his native town. : ‘YT must go in,” he whispered to Frank. ‘ These visitors are the Misses Beck, dear old maiden ladies, great friends of my mother’s. She told me they were going away on a visit, so I may not have another chance of seeing them. Will you wait for me? or try to find Daylight Villa on your own account ?” “Oh, I will wait,” said Frank. ‘Or, stay—I can go out on an errand of my own, and look in again for you. Where shall I finda stationer’s shop ?” “The shops are in quite another direction from Daylight Villa, which is by the railway station,” answered Philip. “I will direct you.” He was not sorry that Frank was disposed of. He knew that the Misses Beck were great gossips, with a furtive love for the marvellous, and that they were not at all unlikely to discuss the ‘ Oriental Mystery,” and might have so prejudiced Frank against that incom- prehensible potentate as to cause him to rescind his consent: and Philip estimated the Misses Beck justly. The two old ladies exclaimed their delight at seeing him, and went into a mingling of ecstacies over his splendid prospects in London and lamentations over his ‘‘ London pallor,” and then relapsed into their chairs and picked up the thread of their conversation where his entrance had snapped it. ‘‘ Miranda does not see things as I see them,” said the elder Miss Beck, “but I say that a woman who will take half-a-crown from such a girl as our Betsy, must have the heart of a stone. A poor parish orphan, earning her bread and eight pounds a year as a domestic servant. It’s shameful !” ‘My dear,” expostulated the calmer Miss Miranda, ‘if a parish orphan goes to buy anything, she has to pay for it. What would you think of any haberdasher, if, before he would sell her a ribbon (and Betsy buys too many !) he asked her, ‘Are you a parish orphan, and are you sure you can afford it?’ It’s exactly the same thing, Esther.” ‘‘ No, it is not,” dissented Miss Beck, ‘‘and I’m sure Mrs. Connell must see it as I do. This woman, if she professes to know anything, ought to have known that Betsy was a parish orphan. J don't profess to be an Oriental Mystery, or anything out of the common, but I’m sure Z could see ‘parish orphan’ stamped ail over the girl in capital letters—which is a trying thing to say of one’s own servant, when one can’t afford to keep a better. But if it’s true, it’s true.” And Miss Beck sat upright and confronted the world. COPMICLMOOOKS Con