The Argosy — page 220: what you’re looking at

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

Caramel Cottage. 203 “ None at all, thank you; I have no time to spare,” said the other, rising to depart. ‘‘Isuppose you do not chance to know whether Reste had a letter from me last ‘Tuesday week ?” “Ves, he had one. It had some bank notes in it. He opened it here at the breakfast table.” Quite a relief passed over Captain Amphlett’s perplexed face at the answer. ‘I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Barbary. By his not acknowledging receipt of the money, I feared it had miscarried.” Bidding us good afternoon, and telling Katrine (at whose sick state he had continued to glance curiously) that he wished her better, the — stranger walked rapidly out to his fly, attended by Mr. Barbary. “Katrine,” I asked, preparing to take my own departure, ‘ what was there in that gentleman to frighten you ?”’ | ‘“‘ It—it was the ague,” she answered, bringing out the words witha jerk. “Oh—ague! Well, I’d get rid of such an ague as that. Good bye.” But it was not ague; it was sheer fear, as common sense told me, and I did not care to speculate upon it. An uneasy atmosphere seemed to be hanging over Caramel Cottage altogether ; to have set in with Edgar Reste’s departure. : A day or two later our people departed for Crabb Cot for change of air for Lena, and we returned to school, so that nothing more was seen or heard at present of the Barbarys. III. December weather, and snow on the ground, and Caramel Cottage looking cold and cheerless. Not so cheerless, though, as poor Katrine, who had a blue, pinched face and a bad cough. “T can’t get her to rouse herself, or to swallow hardly a morsel. of food,” lamented Joan to Mr. Duffham. ‘She sits like a statty all day long, sir, with her hands before her.” “Sits like a statue, does she,” returned Duffham, who could see it for himself, and for the hundredth time wondered what it was she had upon her mind. He did his best, no doubt, in the shape. of tonics and lectures, but he could make nothing of his patient. Katrine vehemently denied that she was worrying herself over any sweetheart—for that’s how Duffham delicately shaped his questions —and said it was the cold weather. “ The voyage will set her up, or—bveak her up,” decided Duffham, who had never treated so unsatisfactory an invalid. “As to not having anything on her mind, why she may tell that to the moon.” Katrine was just dying of the trouble. The consciousness of what the garden could disclose filled her with horror, while the fear of discovery haunted her steps by day and her dreams by night. She could not sleep alone, and Joan had brought her mattress down to the room and lay on the floor. When the sun shone, Mr. Barbary would COMmicoooks.c©