The Argosy — page 214: what you’re looking at

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

The Ebony Box. 197 might have run in a curricle with Charles Cockermuth, as to an out- and-out belief in his guilt, was passing at the moment, and saw It. Miss Betty crossed the bridge, turned off into Turkey, for it was through those classical regions that her nearest and coolest way lay, and so onwards to the sick woman’s room. There she found the blazing July sun streaming in at the wide window, which had no blind, no shelter whatever from it. Miss Betty had had enough of the sun out of doors, without having itin. Done up with the walk and the heat, she sat down on the first chair, and felt fit to swoon right off. ‘‘ Dear me, Hester, this is bad for you! ” she gasped. “Do you mean the sun, ma’am ?” asked the sick woman, who was sitting full in it, wrapped in a blanket or two. ‘‘It is a little hot just now, but I don’t grumble at it; I’m so cold mostly. As soon as the sun goes off the window, I shall begin to shiver.” “‘ Well-a-day!” responded Miss Betty, wishing she could be cool enough to shiver. ‘* But if you feel it cold now, Hester, what will you do when the autumn winds come on?” “Ah, ma’am, please do not talk of it! I just can’t tell what I shall do. ‘That window don’t fit tight, and the way the wind pours in through it upon me as I sit here at evening, or lie in my little bed there, passes belief. I’m coughing always then.” ‘“You should have some good thick curtains put up,” said Miss Betty, gazing at the bare window, which had a pot of musk on its sill, ‘* Woollen ones.” The sick woman smiled sadly. She was very poor now, though it had not always been so; she might as well have hoped to buy the sun itself as woollen curtains—or cotton curtains either. Miss Betty knew that. ‘ll think about it, Hester, and see if I’ve got any old ones that I could let you have. I’m not sure; but I'll look,” repeated she—and began to empty her capacious dimity pockets of a few items of good things she had brought. By-and-by, when she was a little cooler and had talked with Hester, Miss Betty set off home again, her mind running upon the half-pro- mised curtains. ‘‘ They are properly shabby,” thought she, as she went along, ‘but they’ll serve to keep the sun and the wind off her.” She was thinking of those warm green curtains that she had picked the braid from that past disastrous morning—as the reader heard of, and all the town as well. Nothing had been done with them since. Getting home, Miss Betty turned into the parlour. Susan—who had not yet found leisure to fix any time for her wedding—found her mistress fanning her hot face, her bonnet untied and tilted back. “T’ve been to see that poor Hester Knowles, Susan,” began Miss Betty. “Law, ma’am!” interposed Susan. ‘‘ What a walk for you this scorching afternoon! All up that wide New Road!” ‘You may well say that, girl: but I went Turkey way. She’s very CoOniclooolkks (CO) mn