The Argosy — page 204: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Grace. 187 ‘T’ll go now, if you like. I don’t want to let you in for annoy- ance, brother mine.” “Vou have let me in for a good deal of that already, Cyras. Were you at the Haymarket two or three nights ago ?” ce Yes.” ‘¢ And there you were taken forme. Who was the lady? It was half over London the next day that I had been there in suspicious company.” “What a joke!” exclaimed Cyras, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and putting it up. “You may look upon it as a good joke, Cyras, but it has half ruined me,” said Charles with some bitterness. “‘T knew I was being taken for you, Charley,” laughed Cyras, care- lessly. ‘‘Some fellows nodded to me, and one or two spoke, and I nodded back again and kept up the jest.” ‘A sorry jest for me, Cyras. I was engaged to be married—to Mary Dynevor.” “T’m uncommonly glad to hear it,” cried Cyras, stretching out his hand to grasp his brother’s. ‘‘ Mary was the nicest of all the younger girls ; as nice as Cyrilla.” “T said was engaged, Cyras. It is broken off now. Old Miss Dynevor saw me, as she thought, at the Haymarket with someone I had no business to be with; and she went home and told the Sub- dean. ‘The next time I called in Eaton Place he turned me out of doors, and bade me think no more of his daughter.” Cyras suddenly became serious. ‘‘ This has gone farther than I intended,” he cried. ‘All my life I have been getting myself or others into scrapes, and I suppose I shall do so to the end of the chapter. And the best and the worst of it is that I generally manage to come out in worse colours than I deserve: as on this occasion.” Charles looked up. ‘“‘ Have they been traducing you as well as me?” he asked. | ‘The lady I treated to the theatre was no other than Mrs, Car- ington : as good a woman as ever lived, although, as Tony Lumpkin would say, her cheeks are as broad and red as a pulpit cushion. But it is all genuine colour, Charley, just as she herself is a genuine woman.” ‘“What brought you there alone with her ?” asked Charles. “That I was with her alone was an accident,” answered Cyras. “I treated them to the Haymarket, and took three of the best seats. At the last moment, just as we were about to start in the cab, Car- ington’s old father came in to spend the evening, and he had to remain with him.” “T think you were imprudent, to say the least of it,” laughed Charles. ‘‘ The lady was wonderfully got up, I was told.” * Like all born colonists, she is fond of any amount of fans and feathers,” returned Cyras. ‘It was her first introduction to a comicoooKks (CO)