The Argosy — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

Thought-Reading at Lady Clanamfry’s. 109g right. It’s all humbug, you know ; a put-up thing; I’ve seen it at lots of places. Just an excuse for fellows to stand, holding girls’ hands —— ” “Tom !” said his mother, much scandalized, ‘‘ I’m sure you’re mis- taken. Lady Clanjamfry would never permit such a thing. Besides, this is not to be an amateur séance, there is a regular experimentalist, a Herr Van Boschmann, who never fails, the Simplesons declare !” ‘Never fails to take in the Simplesons, I daresay! Are you as in- fatuated about this nonsense as the rest, Mabel ? ” “T? Oh, I don’t know! That is, I think it is very interesting. There must be something in it.” ‘¢ A very new and original opinion, my dear! I’ve no doubt there is, and Van der Bosch, or whatever his name is, thinks so too. Did I tell you that your young friend Lyndhurst had gone off to Paris at a moment’s notice, and public opinion is divided between the idea of an elopement in high hfe or an appointment to head a forlorn hope at Tonquin ?” “Who told you?” Mabel continued to drink tea out of a cup she had already finished, and kept her eyes resolutely fixed on the rosebud at the bottom of it. *T met Curzon last night, and he was full of it. Said he met Lyndhurst on Tuesday in Sloane Street in the most ridiculous hat, and he dashed past him in the wildest way—went off that very even- ing to Paris, cutting all his engagements. Curzon said it was just as well he did go, for no one could possibly have known him in such a file ¢” Mabel said nothing, but helped herself to butter. ‘Plucky girl!” thought Tom; “‘she won’t show if it hurts. I like her for that !” “You would go, Tom dear, wouldn’t you, if I could get another card?” asked Mrs. Barrington, persuasively. ‘‘ It would be so much nicer for Mabel and me if we had you with us—wouldn’t it Mabel ?” ‘You had better take Tom in my place, mamma.” Mabel jumped up and went hastily to the window under pretence of giving her canary a lump of sugar, but her hand shook so that it dropped on the floor of the cage, Tom observed. ‘I don’t think I care much about Tc ‘““Not care ? Why a week ago your heart was set upon this thought- reading, and we were moving heaven and earth for the invitation. What has happened to you, Mabel ?” | “ Nothing ; only I suppose a week ago I had very little chance of going, so I longed for it. Now that it is within my reach I don’t care a bit about it,” the girl answered, wearily. ‘‘ It seems to me that is always the way ; one doesn’t know the value of anything unless it is unattainable.” She fidgeted about the room for an instant or two and then Suid. her escape upstairs, leaving her mother speechless with bewilderment CoOnniclooolks (CO)