The Argosy — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

Mee Fo PRA Cty: JANUARY, 1887. LADY —~ GRACE. BY MRS. HENRY WOOD, AUTHOR OF “EAST LYNNE.” A CHAPTER I. GREAT AND LITTLE WHITTON. A RUSTIC congregation was pouring out of a rustic church, one Sunday afternoon; St. Mary’s, in the hamlet of Little Whitton, situated about thirty miles from the Metropolis. Great Whitton, some three miles off, was altogether a different affair, for the parish, there, was more aristocratic than rustic, and the living was worth nine hundred a-year: Little Whitton brought its incumbent in only two hundred, all told. The livings were both in the gift of the Earl of Avon, whose seat was near, on the other side Great Whitton. The Incumbent of Great Whitton was an old man, almost past duty ; the Incumbent of Little Whitton was an able and attractive man scarcely thirty, the Reverend Ryle Baumgarten. Therefore, little wonder need be expressed if some of the Great Whitton families ignored their old rector, who had lost his teeth, and could not by any effort be heard, and came to listen to the eloquent Mr. Baumgarten. A small, open carriage, the horses driven by a boy, jockey fashion, waited at the church door. ‘The boy was in a crimson jacket and a velvet cap, the postilion livery of the Avon family. The sweeping seat behind was low and convenient, without doors ; therefore, when two ladies emerged from the church, they stepped into it unassisted. The one looked about fifty years of age, and walked slowly ; the other was a young lady of exceeding fairness, with somewhat haughty features, and haughty eyes, blue as the summer sky. The boy touched his horses, and drove on. ‘“‘ He surpassed himself to-day, Grace,” began the elder lady. “IT think he did, mamma.” * But it is a long way to come—for me. I can’t venture out in all weathers. If we had him at Great Whitton, now, I could hear him every Sunday.” “Well, mamma, nothing is more easy than to have him—as I VOL. XLIII. B Conmicoooks (CO)