The Argosy — page 282: what you’re looking at

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

The Mystery of Allan Grale. 263 had; and Lady Laura had only known her as a thoroughly well-bred and self-possessed woman. How would she be likely to accept Mrs. | Grale’s gush of homely old memories? Lady Laura insisted that Mrs. Grale should remain to see her childhood’s friend. With some demur on Mrs. Grale’s part, she yielded, and her horses were put up. After all, her ladyship was disappointed of her fun, for Bell Matthewson proved quite equal to the occasion, and met her old playmate with all the warmth of the past, without bating one jot of the easy dignity of the present. In Mrs. Grale’s arid life the evening had been a perfect oasis. Well might she now say so to Mary Anne! “Tf your father could only guess what that glimpse of Bell Matthewson was to me, child, I don’t think he’d have grudged me such a pleasure, even if it did put him about a little for once.” “Ves, we certainly did have a very happy evening,” said Mary Anne, with that unwonted graciousness which her mother must have remarked, if she had not been absorbed in her own reveries. For Mary Anne was not thinking altogether of the hours spent in Lady Laura’s perfumed little drawing-room, where she had been rather bored, but of the later part of their drive home to Moorland House. On one of the roads they had passed George Vivian: it was a light night, and when Mary Anne recognised him they had stopped the carriage and taken him up. George had been to London for a few days, he told them; and, for some reason of his own, which he did not tell, he had not journeyed home by the line which led straight through Dering, but by another, the main line, whose nearest station —Carston—was more than five miles away across country. When they took him up, he was looking very distrait and fagged with his walk ; but under the influence of the restful motion, Mrs. Grale’s solicitude and Mary Anne’s beaming graciousness, he had soon rallied. When the ladies had descended at Moorland House, they had. ordered their coachman to drive on to the Court with Mr. Vivian. That was the history of the previous evening. ‘“How very nice George Vivian is,” exclaimed Mary Anne, inter-~ rupting her mother’s reveries of the days gone by. ‘“ He is by far the nicest of all the family. I don’t like Edgar at all; and George never shows himself at his best when Edgar is about.” : The truth was, Edgar did not like Mary Anne. He had a very thorough appreciation of the flimsiness of her character and her pre- tensions. Perhaps George took no higher view of the young lady— he would laugh over her with Edgar sarcastically enough; but it was in his nature to be agreeable to present company at any cost. Don’t you like Edgar?” asked Mrs. Grale, surprised. ‘‘ Why, I hike Edgar best; not but that they are both fine young men. I used to like the sister too, and to think what a good thing it would be for Allan if—but there! men never seem to see what is best for them. He went about her a great deal more than he should, if he didn’t mean anything—I’ve said so to him more than once. And ECOMMICMHOOKS. EO an