The Argosy — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

$2 The Mystery of Allan Grale. Lettice Palmer looked wistfully at her sister. Agnes’s laugh was not quite a happy laugh. There had been something about her lately which Lettice could not at all understand. She indulged no more in those dreamy “talks” in which happy girls delight, and for which Lettice often longed. The happy old friendship between her and Edgar Vivian seemed to have come to an end, just when Lettice had hoped it would grow to something more definite. Yet she felt sure Agnes did not love him less. ‘““Do you treat us to those lines to stimulate my ambition, Agnes?” ~ cried Charles. ‘I can assure you it does not need stimulating. Having got through my latest bit of ‘ practical work,’ I am once more prepared to ‘dream and endeavour.’ I am now near success—or failure. Nay, I might almost have decided my fate by this time, if I could only find one of my tools.” “Dear me,” said Lettice; “one of your tools! Have you mis- laid ite” ‘“‘T cannot tell,” Charles answered. ‘‘ I cannot remember when I last had it; but not for a long time. ‘The fact is, it is not mine. Months ago, thinking I might suddenly have occasion for such a thing, I got this one from Mark Acland.” ““ Mark Acland!” echoed Agnes. ‘‘ Does he go in for mechanics? [ thought he was all poetry and romance.” Her tone was playfully mocking. Mark Acland was an old school- fellow of Charles’s. He was training now for a medical man, and was with a surgeon in general practice at Sladford, a thriving country town a few miles beyond Carstow. ‘“‘ Acland is a good fellow,” observed Charles. ‘ He heard me say I wanted this thing, and he told me he could get it for me, and he got it. I never used it; the trouble at Mr. Grale’s occurred about that time, and that is how it went so completely out of my head. Apart from wanting it myself now, I ought to think about returning it to Acland, and I can’t find it anywhere.” ‘‘Where did you keep it—or put it?” questioned Lettice. “Well, to tell the truth, Lettice, that has gone out of my mind as completely as the instrument itself seems to have gone. When it first came to me, I put it in the drawer of my desk at the counting- house = ‘Tt may be there still,” mterrupted Lettice. “No. Ithink I must have brought it home with me. I meant to bring it. I know it was not in the drawer the day the desks and places were being searched by Mr. Grale. If it had been there, I could not have failed to see it.” Charles Carr alluded to that past incident without any bitterness. The wrong had been set right, and it had left no gall in his sweet nature. Since Mr. Grale’s conversation respecting Charles with Dr. Palmer, the manufacturer had given the young man many valuable CONMIClOOLKS (E(@) im