The Argosy — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

A Modern Fatima. 75 these two ;4s certainly very, very strange, and she fretted and grieved all the more sadly because any worry was so wholly foreign to her nature. Alick Rogers could not imagine what ailed her, and at last suggested that she should go away to her own home for change of aur, ‘““T cannot possibly leave the office just now,” he said; “but I would far rather be lonely here without you than see you so fagged and low spirited !” But the more anxious her husband seemed for her to leave him, the more firmly Audrey declined to do so. There came a day when, in passing, she saw the child playing alone in the small front garden. Audrey stopped and spoke to him. ‘What a lot of playthings you have got there!” she said. ‘Yes, uncle gives me lots and lots.” But his nurse came flying out at that moment and called him in, as if afraid of his being spoken to, and Audrey learned no more that day. She was just a tiny bit relieved by what she had heard, for she believed that her husband had never again taken any toys with him when he went there; and as the child had so many, someone else, she thought, must give them to him. But, again, the unlucky possi- bility occurred to her that Alick might leave the presents on his way back from town. Accordingly she stationed herself in the arbour to watch his arrival; and sure enough that evening he went into the villa with a large brown paper parcel and came out of it empty- handed! She took then to watching regularly morning and evening ; but he did not often stop there on the return journey. The next time she saw the child playing about she asked him his name. ‘“ Alick,” he answered, promptly. A horrible shudder ran through poor Audrey. ‘But Alick what ?” she asked. ‘* Alick What—no, Alick,” he said, ignoring lke most children everything except the name by which he was daily called. ‘Little Alick, where is yourmamma?_ I never see her.”’ “There!” he said, pointing to the nurse, who was coming up now to the child’s side. Audrey would not be scared away. ‘‘ What a nice little fellow it is!” she said, pleasantly. “I was asking him where his mamma 1s. I never see her about.” “Poor little boy! I don’t know where she is,” replied the nurse. ‘J don’t know anything about her.” ‘“"Then—is he left entirely in your charge ?—by his father ?” “He is entirely in my charge. But whether it is his father who leaves him with me, or his uncle, as the child has been taught to call him, I don’t know. Of course I have my thoughts.” ‘“ A gentleman comes to see him every day, does he not ?” “Yes ; that’s the uncle,” replied the nurse. ‘“‘He is mighty kind GomilGaooks am