The Argosy — page 333: what you’re looking at

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

308 SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE. By CHARLES HERVEY. ()N a bright August afternoon a year or two ago, one of the squares abutting on the Lees at Folkestone was thronged with a mis- cellaneous assemblage of visitors, strolling about or sitting in groups, and listening to a lively selection from ‘‘ Olivette” played with unflagging spirit by the band of a regiment quartered at Shorncliffe. Among the latest arrivals was a good-looking young man in a travelling suit. After pausing for a few minutes at the entrance, as if undecided whether to go in or not, he quietly made his way through the crowd, and, securing a post of vantage in a temporarily secluded part of the garden, glanced rather listlessly than curiously at the animated scene before him. He had not been there long when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turning round beheld, to his evident - dissatisfaction, a stout, smirking individual—Tommy Gabbleton, the most notorious gossip and scandal-monger since the days of Crabtree and Sir Benjamin—who accosted him with a familiar : “Hullo, Torrens, who in the world would have thought of seeing you here! ‘They told me you were at Homburg.” ‘So I was until yesterday,” replied the other. ‘Only arrived this morning.” | ‘Quite right to look us up on your way to Scotland,” rattled on Tommy ; “for of course you are off to the moors. Nothing like laying in a provision of oxygen,” he continued without waiting for an answer. ‘I always do at this time of year; and for that sort of thing there’s no better place than Folkestone. By the bye,”—here his sly puckered face assumed a semi-mysterious expression—‘‘ perhaps you don’t know that Miss Trevelyan is here? ” “Indeed !” said Torrens, in a studiously indifferent tone. “I was not aware of it.” “Yes, and what’s more, she is sitting yonder, not twenty yards from us with her aunt, Mrs. Mortimer, and—ahem !—Gerestein. I thought it best to give you a hint, as under the circumstances a meeting might be unpleasant, you know.” “On the contrary,” was the young man’s unexpected answer, “ I shall be delighted to see Miss Trevelyan. And, following his nota - little astonished guide, he soon found himself in the presence of the trio in question, consisting of a strikingly handsome girl, elaborately attired in one of M. Worth’s latest “creations,” a middle-aged chaperon, and a stout, over-dressed personage of unmistakably Teuton nationality. ‘‘T have brought you an old acquaintance, ladies,” said Gabbleton, Gomicbooks (E(e)