The Argosy — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

My Saturdays. 31 and sofas indoors. So, by-and-bye, my dwelling was restored to its usual order, Lucilla had waved her farewell to the Londoners as they rowed down the river, and at last taken her mother off my hands; and I sat down, tired but triumphant, to administer a substantial tea to Archibald, and hear what his wide experience thought of my début. “It was very fair, auntie; very fair, indeed. Games well kept up, plenty of talk, people well mixed. lEatables and everything of that sort, first-rate. ‘The question is: Shall you be able to keep it up? It will do very well if you are a woman of original mind, and can have a little variety every time, and keep something going; other- wise, there is danger of toujours perdrex.” ‘‘T must try,” I said. ‘‘ At any rate, I have made a good start, and I look to you for some of the variety. Mind, you have carte blanche to bring or send anyone you think an addition.” ‘‘ You don’t suppose I have an unlimited stock of nice young men for small tea-parties, do you? After all, the great question is, how much do you local people care to see of each other?” “IT fancy that we have social materials here,” I returned, ‘‘ though rather in a state of disintegration ; but time will show. By-the-bye, you seemed to find a sympathetic listener in my friend Rhoda.” “T should think so. She is clever enough to understand what is said to her, and has something to say on her own account ; and then, every now and again, she comes out with something so de- liciously silly that you feel she would be nowhere if you did not look after her.” ; ‘And, pray, in what manner do you propose to look after Mrs. Lingard ?” ‘Come, auntie, give me credit for not meaning an impertinence. Mrs. Lingard is one of those sweet, soft, impulsive women who are capable of great follies and sublime heroism, and both together ; their fairness makes life harmonious, and their caprices make it interesting: they do none of the work of the world, or do it ill, but they alone make it worth doing. In her individual capacity she appears to me to be a pretty woman, with a rather helpless husband on her hands; but if he really has half the brains she says (which probably he hasn’t), I may be able to do something for him.” “He has plenty of brains, as you would find out in half an hour’s talk with him, providing he had not ague coming on, or dyspepsia going off, or a headache in full course, and that the wind was not in the east. But how do you see a chance for him ?” “Only because he seems to know a good deal about a subject which is coming to the front. Nobody cared a halfpenny about Cyprus until we put down our thumb on it; but now everything about it is of interest to some one. A man who really has stores of information ready to hand, worked up into some kind of shape, is sure of a market, if he only knows how to go about his selling. But CONnNICMHOOKS.EO mn