The Argosy — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

88 The Mystery of Allan Crale. state altogether. She turned paie at the mention of the Black FOOL” As they were about to enter Dr. Palmer’s house, Charles Carr took a roll of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lettice. “There,” said he, ‘that’s the mysterious manuscript. Now, you are not to let anybody else see it, not even Agnes, until you have given me your opinion upon it.” ‘What, did you have it with you all this time!” she exclaimed. ‘How does itend? From what you have hinted, I am not at all sure I. shall like it.” “Tf you like the beginning, I can easily re-write it with a different ending,” he answered. ‘‘ And I can change the names too, if you wish it.” CHAPTER -XXIX. CALLED IN TO MRS. GRALE. In the course of the evening, Lettice Palmer stole away to her own room to read Charles’s manuscript. She felt almost guilty, in having, perhaps for the first time in her life, a secret from Agnes. The little tale, entitled ‘‘’The Romance of Mark Bedell,” was a very simple story. ‘There wasa friendless young fellow, named ‘‘ Mark Bedell,” and there was his patron, the village pastor, Mr. Pilgrim, who had two daughters, Lily and Alice. And Lily was beloved by Mark Bedell: and at first it was a love full of hope which stimulated his ambition. He worked hard, continuously; he was an artist, and at last he overworked, so that his eyesight failed him, at least fora time. And then he slowly woke to the fact that others, far above him, were ready to woo and wed the gentle Pilgrim girls. Did Lily really care for him ? or was she only kind and tender to his loneliness and weakness ? Nature did the work of art in the story at this point of narrating how his hopes would veer through doubt into despondency. Lettice blushed in the twilight as she recalled the true basis of many a little fact set forth in the tale, of whose working in and effect upon Charles’s mind she was only now aware. But all of a sudden she sprang to her feet, the roses burning hotly in her cheeks. It was as if a mask slipped aside—as if the puppets of a play suddenly ceased their mechanical mimicry, and stretched warm hands towards her. For there, on one of the later pages, the young author’s pen had slipped, and he had written, instead of Lily Pilgrim—Lettice Palmer. There was not much more to read after that, and what there was, was sad. For this Mark Bedell never told his-love, but made Lily Pilgrim believe him cold, even indifferent and ungrateful. So Lily married somebody else—somebody well-born and wealthy, and she and Mark met no more. Only after the artist, Bedell, was dead, the critics began to remark that in every picture of his there appeared, in some form or other—one face. Now it was in a foremost personage, CORNICOOOKS. COM