The Argosy — page 348: what you’re looking at

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

The Mystery of Allan Grale. 327 She said this at a juncture, when Agnes was almost in despair about the matter. And her strong assurance, apparently born of experience, seemed the faith which removes mountains. For within a week of her utterance, Mary Letts dropped into her niche ! When Agnes heard the news she rushed home, and burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, before she could tell it to Letty. Her laughter was almost contagious beforehand ; it became altogether so, once her tidings were imparted. ‘“‘ Mary Letts is to be housekeeper to Old Mittens!” Now old Mittens was a local “character.” He lived at Carstow, and because he was dirty and odd, he had the reputation of being a miser— a reputation which he repudiated so energetically that people believed it all the more. He resided in a ruinous little house—his own property —was a bachelor—now about eighty years old, and had spent his life as a ‘‘ miscellaneous dealer,”—a gatherer of rags, bones, waste-paper; provision tins and old bottles, from all the villages round. Mittens’ habits were peculiar; every pound of his strange, unsavoury stock was always turned over with the utmost care—tradition having it that his discovery in early youth of a diamond ring in a dust box was the origin of this custom. Mittens and his housekeepers had been a standing topic in the neighbourhood for the last half-century. Decent, notable widows or spinsters would have nothing to do with the grimy establishment of the grimy old man, and his temper and patience had been sorely tried by a succession of vixens and “‘trollops,” as he chose to call them. One day, when the old horse and cart, going the regular rounds, pulled up before the blacksmith’s house, Mittens, descending from his perch, proceeded to pour forth his not unusual story of house- hold woe and desertion; he having turned his last “‘ baggage” out of doors the previous day for drunkenness. ‘The blacksmith’s wife felt a sudden inspiration—Mary Letts! It might prove an act of real charity to him as well as to her, to recommend her. And so Mary Letts was called to the conference, and listened to particulars. Mittens would feed and house her and her boy after his fashion, but he would not speak about wage ‘until he saw,” as he said, with grim foreboding, born of perennial disappointment. But Mary had little fear. The thought of peace and settlement was every- thing to her. She knew she should be quite satisfied with his larder, which the “‘ trollops ” had grumbled at, after her past years of semi- starvation. She could grow fat upon morsels of dripping and scraps of bacon rind, with occasional feasts of periwinkles and watercress. She went off at once with her child in Mittens’ creaking cart—a contented, truly thankful woman. Old Mittens, in spirits at having so readily found a fresh help, and one likely to suit, condescended to a little sociability, and asked her what the particulars were about the boy’s having been fished out of the Black Pool, and thereby his life saved, by Mr. Edgar Vivian. COnniclooolxs CO am