The Argosy — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

E32 “Fohn Smith, Funor.” with easy friendliness. She explained her position at ‘‘ The Grange,” adding, in a tone of gentle deprecation : ‘‘ ‘They are so kind to me, it is impossible to live with them and see their goodness and not love and respect them.” “Tam sure of it,’ he replied warmly. ‘“ Mr. Smith is renowned for his liberality, and is as unassuming as he is generous. He has only now left the room to make out a cheque fora thousand pounds, which he has promised me for the ‘Society for Promoting Culture among the Lower Classes,’ of which, you know, I am the secretary. We invited him to become our chairman, but he refuses on the ground that he does not pretend to any culture himself; he hopes the next generation will have better advantages in its youth. ‘The money is to be devoted to the establishment of a scholarship, by means of which some promising lad in our night-school will have the advantage of three years’ thorough technical training in any DER of artistic labour for which he shows himself best fitted. ‘ “Tt is just like him. ‘They are always giving and helping,” said Frances. Mr. Smith’s entrance put an end to the conversation. It was Mr. Fitzhardy’s pleasing duty to inform his sister of the step Frances had taken. Alicia could hardly believe her ears. ‘“‘ What !—Frances Lisle—a girl whom I believed to be patrician to her finger-tips—gone to be the companion of that vulgar, odious Mrs. Smith? It is incredible! How could one so apparently sensitive to the least want of refinement and cultivation, submit for a moment to become the dependant of people of that kind ? ” ‘Perhaps you think she had better have let her mother and sisters starve on two hundred a-year?” was her brother’s curt reply. Alicia was angry, and anger is rarely discreet. : “She need have done neither if she had only played her cards properly,” she replied snappishly. ‘‘ You may thank your stars she did not hook you safely before their smash-up came—you nibbled at the bait pretty considerably.” ‘Alicia !—you are downright vulgar,” her brother exclaimed. Later on, Mrs. Smith, thinking it would be a pleasant change for Frances, told her to invite some young friend to come and spend a few days with her at ‘The Grange.” Greatly delighted at the prospect, Frances wrote to her dear Alicia, a long, loving, gossipy letter, such as girls love to send to their bosom friends, telling her something of her changed feeling towards these good people. The reply came as a shock to all her previous notions :— ‘““Miss Fitzhardy regrets that she is obliged to inform Miss Lisle that their acquaintance must be considered at an end. She had given Miss Lisle credit for sufficient good taste to see that any intimacy between Miss Fitzhardy and the paid companion of her draper’s wife was utterly out of the question. Miss Fitzhardy wishes Miss Lisle every happiness in her present station, and if at any time her name would be of service to Miss Lisle as a_refer- Gomilcbooks (e(0) mn