The Argosy — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

28 GODMOTHER DOROTHY. | THINK my story began at the moment when my hat box was bundled out of the van of the London train at the Crossbridge station. It was certainly before the extraction of my second port- manteau, for I was too anxious about that to pay any attention to the fact that a porter at my elbow had made several attempts to complete an observation beginning ‘‘ Beg pardon, sir,”’—didn’t discover that he intended the remark for me, in fact, for some little time—‘ The lady is in the waiting-room, sir. If you'll please step this way.” Lady? What lady? I wasn’t expecting any lady, and so I told him; but when the portmanteau was found at last, and the other portmanteau, and the helmet-case, and the sword-case, and the Overland trunk, and the hamper, and the uniform-case, and the sticks and rugs, and the train had moved off, I turned to find him and myself the only visible beings on the platform, and to hear him still persuasively reiterating, ‘‘If you would kindly step this way, sir. There don’t seem to be any other party about, that the lady might be expecting.” And he looked feebly along the down line and into the signal-box, and back into my face again for a suggestion. ‘““Whoever she expects it’s quite certain not to be me,” I assured him. ‘Now suppose you bring these things along to wherever the Rocksedge train starts from.” He obeyed under an evident burden of misgivings. ‘‘ Military gent, walks lame, straight figure, grey moustache; odd if there’s two of them about,” I heard him murmur to himself as he piled his truck. ‘‘Rocksedge, sir? That’s where the lady is going to,” he said, lifting his handles and trundling off with his load. ‘What’s she like?” I asked with some curiosity, as I walked beside my possessions to a distant end of the platform : “an old lady ?” “Not an o/d lady, sir,” very positively. “A young lady, then?” ‘I shouldn’t exactly call her young either, sir,” extinguishing a rising glimmer of interest in my mind. I dismissed him, and felt for my cigar-case, smiling to myself at the idea his words conveyed. ‘The sort of woman who is decidedly not old but can’t be called young— I had a vision of her on the spot. She wears a tailor suit, her figure being the last spar of youthfulness to which she can cling. <A grizzled fringe peeps from beneath a hat of a severe build, and she is also addicted to further emphasising the hard outline of cheek and chin by tight collars and brilliant scarves. Her boots are a strong point, and are usually worth looking at—instep and ankle know no age. I had got so far in my fancy sketch while preparing to light up, when I beheld my porter back again, Eomichbooks.co m