The Argosy — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

79 MR. GORDON: SPECIALIST. By ELLA EDERSHEIM. > > CHAPTER I. MRS. FARRINGDON GRIFFITHS. S EALLY, Virginia! Leaving alone your duty to your neigh- bour, I must say that you owe it to me, as your mother, to consider your appearance a little more. Why, you look thirty, posi- tively nearly your own age, to-night! And why I am to go about branded as an old lady, because you choose to neglect the means Providence has placed in your power to enable you to perform your duty, I cannot conceive! What have I done that I should have such an inconsiderate daughter? Was it my fault or my crime that I married your father when I was only seventeen, and that you, un- grateful child, were born but a year afterwards? I can’t go about and proclaim that to everyone. I can’t go round the hotel, and say: ‘Though my daughter is thirty-one, and looks it, I am only forty- nine.’ No, Virginia. ——— But now, kindly make haste. The dinner- bell will sound in a minute, and if we are not punctual, those odious Harpers are sure to try and spite us and take our places.” While Mrs. Farringdon Griffiths had been speaking, her daughter had once more turned to the mirror, and by the help of a candle, whose radiance was but dimly perceivable against the glow of the twilight, was giving certain swift and effective touches to her hair and face. She drew the little aureole of fair curls that crowned her small head lower down over her forehead; her eyebrows became slightly more distinct; her pale cheeks faintly flushed. Her mother rose, and looked over her shoulder approvingly. The looking-glass, small in proportion to the room occupied by tha ladies high up in the Bar at Grindelwald, impartially reflected the two figures. As Mrs. Farringdon Griffiths remarked, they would easily have passed for sisters. In spite of the years between them, the elder lady’s comeliness of form and selection of attire made her appear — almost her daughter’s junior. ‘There was a vivacity in her eye, and an enthusiasm in her manner, which Virginia altogether lacked. Virginia was a weak, yet pretty little person, entirely the opposite to her mother in all things; and, indeed, as that lady was often heard to declare, the very counterpart of the late Mr. Farringdon Griffiths. “Yes; I think you will do now,” said the elder lady, as she criticisingly turned the small figure round and round before her, giving a pat here, and a pin there, as her fastidious eye directed. *‘ It’s wonderful how dependent you are on colour! And I,” with comicooolks (CO) mm