The Argosy — page 328: what you’re looking at

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

Catherine versus Kate. 309 “Upon my word, he must be an admirable Crichton !” *‘ He is, John.” ‘“ And do you love the fellow ?” “ Well, John, I will leave you to judge. I love him so well that the world is sacred to me because he dwells init. I think of him night and day. I fall asleep with his image before my eyes, and I awake with his name upon my lips. If he gives me a flower, I trea- sure its withered petals; if he touches my needlework, it becomes hallowed to me. When he smiles, I am in heaven; when he talks, the society of the gods is mine. I see no man but him. All other men seem to me like pigmies. He so possesses me that when I look in the glass, I marvel to see my own face there, and not his!” ‘‘'Why Catherine said these very things of the man she loved!” ‘“T am not surprised. We are both women; and when a woman loves, this is how she loves!” “ But this fellow, Kate! Who is he?” ‘Who is Catherine’s false lover, John?” “T don’t know. I never asked. I didn’t care to ask. Why should [—what is Catherine to me? Who is the man whom you love, Kate? Good heavens! I could strangle him! Who is he, I say ? Strange that he should turn up the moment I went away!” “Don’t excite yourself, John! You will increase the inflammation in your eyes.” “But who is the fellow? You are killing me! Who—who, I say, has won your heart? Who is he?” “Who is the fellow? Why, John, he is the man who wouldn’t drive Kate to her birthday picnic, and who wouldn’t ask Kate to dance at Lady X ’s ball! He is the cleverest man in all England, and the most athletic—the Captain of the Southernshire Muffs, and + John tore the bandage from his eyes, and lo, Catherine—in her white cap and apron—stood before him! But her teeth were like pearls, and she had eyes that danced, and her blue spectacles lay beside her on the table. “Catherine! Kate!” he stammered. “Qh John, forgive me!” she cried, with tears and laughter. ‘“When you went away, I couldn’t bear it, and it was Kate who came to you in spectacles and a wig, and with patches of black on her teeth, and always a piece of ivory in her mouth to alter her voice, and it is Kate who has been Catherine for three months. Oh John, I couldn’t help it, and though you do think me so shallow, and though I was so angry with you, I would go to the North Pole, or journey through Sahara, with my hand in yours !” “So this is how women love!” said John, after they were married. “TI should have mourned my life away. You came and took me by storm.” VOL. XXXIX., x Connicloookks (SO