The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari. Volume 93,
September 10, 1887, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari. Volume 93, September 10, 1887

Author: Various

Release Date: September 1, 2010 [EBook #33600]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOLUME 93.

SEPTEMBER 10, 1887.

* * * * *

STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ASCENA LUKINGLASSE.

(_By_ PHIL UPPES, _Author of "An Out-of-Luck Young Man," "Jack and Jill
went up the Hill," "The Bishop and his Grandmother," &c._)

ASCENA'S NARRATIVE.

THE story which I have to tell is more than strange. It is so terrible,
so incredible, so entirely contrary to all that any ordinary reader of
the _London Journal_ or the "penny dreadfuls" has ever heard of, that
even now I have some doubt in telling it. I happen, however, to know it
is true, and so does my husband. My husband will come in presently with
his narrative. There! that ought to make you curious. A very good
commencement.

My early life was uneventful. I was a foundling. I was left with two old
ladies (I fancy I may work them up some day into "character" sketches)
by a perfect gentleman, who, after giving them L200, went away the next
morning to Vienna for ever. He left with these two old ladies a little
wardrobe full of clothes, but there was not a mark, nor so much as an
initial, upon a single thing. They had all been cut out with a sharp
pair of scissors.

This again ought to excite your curiosity. Bear it in mind. Mysterious
parentage--no mother, no marks, and father gone to Vienna for ever.

The two old ladies kept a school, in which I first was a scholar, then a
teacher. There I remained until I was seventeen, when I was tall and
strong for my age, and looked more like three or four and twenty. One
day one of the old ladies said to me--

"Now, my dear, I will tell you what we are going to do. We are going to
sell the school, and buy a little cottage at B