The Argosy — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

Godmother Dorothy. 29 “Task your pardon, sir, I really do/ But the lady she is that positive, that just for the satisfying of her mind if you would step round, I’d take it as a kindness.” I replaced my cigar case, amused in spite of myself, but provoked also. Crossbridge isa little deserted strip of a platform, at the junction of two lines of railway. We had it all to ourselves except for two market-women, who were slumbering over their baskets on the bench outside the one little waiting-room. ‘The lady” whoever she might be, and I, would have practically an unbroken téte-a-téte till the arrival of my train; a trying position for me, who am emphatically not a society man. I compromised. “‘Tf the lady likes to come and look at me, she will find me at the book-stall; I am going to get a paper,” and off I walked as briskly as a recent attack of rheumatism would allow. I found the stall nearer to the waiting-room door than I had sup- posed, and heard the rustle of a gown almost at my elbow as I unfolded the largest daily paper in the world, and from its cover took a view in return of the lady who was so desirous of appropriating me. She was retreating hastily, the porter following, uttering regrets in a gruff whisper. ‘‘ But,” I heard her say, “I told you an e/derly gentle- man. Quite elderly.” I looked again, and my fancy picture vanished into thin air. It no more resembled her than, in my opinion, her description did me. First of all she was clad in a big mantle that draped her in graceful, glossy folds. Then she wore a bonnet— I don’t commit myself to the style or material—but it was dark and close, and the strings marked the outline of a soft pink cheek, and tied themselves up snugly under a round, white, determined chin. The mouth above was a little square resolute one too, and explained the porter’s blind zealin her service. I couldn’t see the colour of her eyes, but they were dark and soft, and in place of the grizzled fringe with which my fancy had endowed her, wavy bands of brown hair, possibly sprinkled with grey, were brushed back from a low, white forehead. Altogether I almost caught myself wishing for a moment I had been the right man. I wished it completely and unfeignedly a moment later, when her travelling companion joined her at the waiting-room door. This was simply the loveliest young creature I had ever set eyeson. A slip of a girl, at the “ bud” stage of existence, with great sapphire eyes, a mass of paly gold hair, and the tints of a wild rose. She was well got-up in a neat grey travelling suit, with a crimson knot at her throat, and a crimson band round her grey sailor hat, and she carried a little silky black dog in her slim, grey, long-gloved hands. She made a little confidential pantomime of despair when she beheld me, and the two retired within the doorway. I was so lost to all sense of propriety as to follow them. There was a big poster about cheap trips to the Fisheries hanging close to the door, and taking out pencil and an old envelope I began to note down carefully the terms on which I could CONNIE OOS (E(@) m