Marion Marlowe in Society, or, A Race for a Title — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

6 MY QUEEN. other preference. You know, she has shown my Jack quite a great deal of attention lately.” “Indeed! I hadn’t observed it,” began Mrs. Van Twiller, dryly; then she put up her lorgnette and gazed out of the carriage. “There they are now, the dear boys!” she announced, almost instantly. “Why, how early they are out; it is hardly three! Such — noble fellows! How proud we should be of them!” | She leaned out of the carriage window and beckoned to ker son, and, as the coach- man saw him, he drove close to the curb- stone. Two young men of about nineteen were walking slowly up the street. both dressed in tweed, and they had on the most pronounced They were loud patterns of English type of Raglan overcoats. Each carried a walking stick with an enormous knob on the end. A cloud of smoke enveloped them, for both were smoking cigarettes as if their lives depended on it. . On catching sight of the ladies in the car- riage they doffed brimmed derbies. “Ah! Good-mawning, Mrs. Wurtemburg! Charmed to see you, don’t you know! Been calling with mother, I fawncy,” said Gus Van bow toward his their low, narrow- Twiller, with a careless mother. “Deuced fine day, Mrs. Van Twiller; Guts and I are just out for a stwoll, don’t you know! We were just talking of the Pwince’s latest fad when we discovered the caw- widge.” “And what is the Prince of Wales’ latest fad?” asked Mrs. Van Twiller, trying to look interested. “Really, it 1s wonderful how English you boys are getting. And your accent is so perfect; I just love to positively hear you!” “What is the Pwince’s latest fad, Gus? Bless me eyes, if I haven’t forgotten it, ’pon honor!” said Jack Wurtemburg, turning to his companion, with a foolish grin. Gus Van Twiller was about to explain, © when his mother interrupted him: “Oh, Jack, what do you think? We’ve been calling on Mrs. Stetson! And our dear friend introduced us to her new protégée, Miss Marion Marlowe. You really ought to see her—such a slip of a girl and such won- _ derful muscles, and with the very odor of the meadows still clinging about her.” “How dwedful!” ejaculated Gus, with a contortion of his features; “weally, now, that’s too bad of Mrs. Stetson! Why didn’t she find us something a little more con- genial ?” “Oh, but Miss Marlowe is pretty enough,” spoke up Mrs. Wurtemburg, quickly; “only, of course, it is a beauty of the plebeian order, not the kind of a face that we could care for, although we must conceal our feelings for Mrs. Stetson’s sake. It would never do in the world, you know, to let her see what we really think of her protégée; but the girl is so healthy that she is almost a tomboy.” The carriage drove on with the two ladies looking eagerly at each other. “T thought it best to nip it right in the bud at the very first,” said Mrs. Van Twiller, with a little snap. “It would be perfectly dreadful if either of the dear boys should get infatuated with that girl; and actresses” are so artful—there’s no knowing what she might do to entrap them; for, of course, she wouldn't dream of aspiring to a title.” “We must keep our eyes open,” said Mrs, “No doubt Mrs. Stetson will give her a handsome Wurtemburg, with an emphatic nod. dot; but I shall never be satished until my boy has married millions.” “Nor I,” was the answer, with a good deal of emphasis; “I am determined that my boy shall marry a girl as rich as Miss Rushlyn.” See ee — o GEomicbooks.¢o