The Argosy — page 318: what you’re looking at

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

A Little Maid, an Old Maid and the Major. 297 more frankly, if still rather shyly, cordial. But his towards her remained unaltered. He was kind— interested even to a certain extent—but austerely reserved. Miss Dodson noticed it, of course, on the few occasions when she saw them together and drew her own conclusions. ‘‘ They are acting a part,” she informed Miss Tippany, ‘‘but the girl is evidently growing tired of it. She begins to show her feelings more than she has any idea of. Probably she cares for him much more than he does for her—the designing minx.” “Poor mamma always said that girls should never show their feelings,” observed Miss Tippany. ‘Men used to follow her from town to town, but she never encouraged them by so much as a glance.” “Dear me!” said Miss Dodson with a yawn. ‘What a pity some of them can’t rise from their graves and transfer their attentions to you.” (That will stop her with her eternal ‘poor mamma,” was her mental comment on this cruel speech.) But Miss Tippany bridled. “T can assure you, Miss Dodson, that you are mistaken if you imagine me not to have had as many chances as other girls. But poor mamma always felt that compared with her blood poor papa’s was a little inferior ; and so——” * Ves—yes, I understand. I daresay you might have married an archbishop or a duke if you had liked. Good gracious! there’s a fly drawn up at Major Murdoch’s door, and a woman inside it. Well- dressed too! I mever/ Yes—you may ring, madam, but you won’t get in. The Major’s gone to the Abbey and taken the child with him, and the maid’s off on a holiday.” The lady had descended from the cab and was standing in the road gazing in a bewildered way up and down it. She was elegantly but not very tidily dressed, and looked delicate, even from the distance at which Miss Dodson was viewing her. ‘TY think I will just step over and tell her the Major is away. It will only be good-natured, although I daresay she’s no better than she should be.” And Miss Dodson prepared to depart. “Pray be careful! These improper people are often so rude. Not that I know it from having spoken to even one of them, ot course ; but poor papa used to tell poor mamma——” An energetic bang of the front-door cut short the stream of Miss Tippany’s reminiscences. She could only clasp her hands in feeble deprecation (directed, perhaps, to the shades of her maternal ancestors) and watch Miss Dodson’s proceedings. That energetic lady stepped briskly across the road and addressed the stranger abruptly. “ Major Murdoch is out,” she said. ‘He won’t be back, I believe, until to-morrow morning.” The new-comer looked disappointed, for which Miss Dodson was COnICECOOOKS.c©