The Argosy — page 274: what you’re looking at

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

; : Fr ® 2. oo: & . 2 : = = 4 — —— — = — - —————_ —_—— — EE eee - - The White Witcit. 257 ) a = —— -_ ‘An unprincipled woman,” thought he to himself as he glared sternly at the ceiling, ‘‘is like a plague-spot whose presence spreads contagion wherever it appears, and the remedy ought to be the same— | isolation.” Having thus thrown the blame of his impatience over the matches upon Miss Dixon, he continued his reflections. ‘Already that silly lad Underwood is mad about her. And I declare I think about her myself twice as much as I do about Elspeth. Yes, she is poisoning all our lives; she ought to be isolated. I must try to find out what it is that 1s amiss in her antecedents. Her mother was frightened—for her sake, of course—at the name of old Hunt: and she herself certainly showed fear at the mention of Rome. | What is it all? J’ll win the girl’s confidence if I can—not to injure ; her, simply for my own satisfaction. And there’s another point: who is to know whether her true name is Dixon? [could find no trace of a doctor of that name in Norfolk. Good heavens! what an awful thing if they should both be—be—adventuresses ! ” He began walking up and down the room in excitement. After three or four turns, his eyes fell on the latest additions to Miss Dixon’s collection of twigs and fir-cones, oak-apples and grasses, spread care- fully out, as usual, on a couple of old chests, to be trimmed and dried. | **A lot of confounded rubbish !” muttered he. A heavy old school-room inkstand which he sometimes used caught ed ; his eye. It was placed on the top of a pile of big books, evidently to press some flowers or leaves underneath. ‘* Wy inkstand!” he gasped. ‘‘She actually has the impertinence . to meddle with my things for her wretched weeds! ” | He snatched off the inkstand, upsetting some ink over one of his hands, banged it down on a table near, and began wiping his fingers with his handkerchief. And then he noticed something lying among the grasses. He picked it up and examined it curiously; it wasa woman’s glove: the longest he had ever seen; long enough to reach to the shoulder. ** Queer-looking thing off!” thought he, forgetting his anger in his amusement. ‘Though it looks very well on.” And he stretched it upon his own arm to see the length of it. ‘* What will women wear next ! Fancy putting a pretty arm in a leather case, like a doll. It seems absurd; one would think it mustlookabsurd. But I like those long gloves myself; at least I like them on her. I don’t sayI should like them on Mrs. Thornhill, or on ——” He stopped short, even in his thoughts. MHastily taking the glove off his arm, he put it gently down again just as it had been before. ‘I must not let her see that it has been touched. If she thinks her things are disturbed here, she’ll take them away, and I might lose ht one of my best chances of meeting her here, and—and of finding -_ out : Again he stopped; but the idea of finding out anything against her, or of there being anything to find out, seemed to turn his whole —— = —— ° a » . Seeley grew » . comicbooks.com