The Argosy — page 251: what you’re looking at

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

236 Philip Twyford’s Exchange. old one who wishes you so well. Philip,” he continued, after he had filled his glass with the rare old vintage, and sniffed the aroma, and surveyed the bee’s wing with the eye of the good old connoisseur that he was. ‘Philip, I say. I had no idea that my light words with respect to the heiress would have taken such firm root, and given the start to a wooing so evidently successful.” Philip looked down and fidgeted with his wine glass. ‘Speak on, sir,” he said. ‘‘I do not know that there has been anything so ‘ evident,’ that would warrant your coupling my name with that of Miss Carson.” ‘© Of Miss Carson!” chuckled the old man, ‘‘no, I should think not, indeed. And just as well for you, my friend, that there is not.” The Squire shook his fist playfully at Philip as he spoke. The young man blushed. ‘‘T am quite aware that it would have been the height of imperti- nence in me,” he said, “‘to have—to have —— ” ‘Made love,” prompted the Squire. “To Miss Carson,” continued Philip. ‘But, in spite of her enormous fortune and the immense convenience that it would be to me, I must confess, sir, that not for one moment have I wavered in my allegiance to Miss Phillimore. My intense admiration for that lady has dated from the night of the hunt ball, and has been on the increase ever since. ” The Squire shook himself about with violent laughter, and his jolly round face formed a marked contrast to Philip’s woe-begone counte- nance. The young man was somewhat nettled at his uncle’s uncalled- for hilarity. | “Tt seems no laughing matter to me, sir,” he said proudly, ‘though it would appear to amuse you vastly. I fail to perceive the joke in my falling in love with a penniless girl, and being too poor to ask her to marry me.” ‘‘Penniless!” roared the Squire, “and who said Letitia was penniless ?” Philip could not say that anyone had exactly committed themselves to the statement: but it had been very apparent from many things the ladies themselves had said and done. And in this he was right. For it must be confessed that Lettie, having accidentally discovered the mistake he was under, had insisted on Jeannie helping her to keep up the deception. The old Squire had noticed nothing: but it was not lost on the keen-sighted lover that Jeannie wore beautiful jewellery in the evening and Lettie the quietest of ornaments. The Squire’s mirth and Philip’s indignation waxed apace. Had his uncle not been an old man, and one to whom he owed much, Philip felt that he must have knocked him down. He never felt so galled in his life. “The monkeys!” gasped the Squire, when he had somewhat re- covered himself; ‘‘so they’ve been imposing upon you, have they ” 1) Gomicbooks (E(0) m