The Argosy — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

Be A Rov Ga Oat aX, SEPTEMBER) Had. Pea Di¥n, VALE RIA; ————7»+>0<-—___ Creed ER XXX. THE HEIRESS OF ALTCAR. HATEVER Bank Holiday did elsewhere, it dawned down at Altcar in full August glory. The untimely summer rains had kept the fresh green tints on the foliage and filled the brooks to their rushy brims ; and now the sun came shining warm on the sodden earth and down-beaten corn fields, bringing hope to the heart that the harvest might yet be saved, and the Thanksgiving Service some- thing more than an opening for church decoration. Altcar being on the way to nowhere in particular, the train with the party from St. Fridolin’s stopped pretty punctually at the signal-box, where the pointsman exhausted his last remaining faculties of wonderment at the sight of the arrivals. A considerable demand on them had already been made when two waggonettes, the great barouche and pair which Lord Altcar insisted on keeping up for Mary Liddell’s sole behoof and embarrassment, the farm pony-cart, the brake from the Ingilby Arms, and Mr. Renwick in a nondescript vehicle of his own invention all drew up in waiting, and the subsequent dis- charge on his slip of a platform of a whole trainful, or so it seemed, of young ladies with a lesser following of men-folk, Lady Archdale, her daughter, the Vicar and Mr. de Cressy, ‘‘ fairly bowled him over,” as he told his wife at tea. “There were all sorts there,” as Hester had said. All sorts amongst the girls and their friends, foom the smart young brewery clerk who bore himself so gallantly, to the dilapidated little widower whose betrothed, a strapping young lass, had taken him in hand for the sheer satisfaction of setting him and his dilapidated young family and business, ‘‘in the straw bonnet line,” all to rights again. The girls, to a girl, were smart and tidy, some exceptionally stylish. ‘The party naturally divided itself into several little groups ; but was, after VOL. XLII. M comicbooks (CO)