Only a girl's love

It is a warm evening in early Summer; the sun is setting behind a long range of fir and yew-clad hills, at the feet of which twists in and out, as it follows their curves, a placid...

"Poor girl!" murmured Stella. There was silence for a moment. "And those three live there all alone?" she said. "Not always," he replied, musingly. "Sometimes, not often, the son ...

Stella stood watching until the big chestnut had borne its master out of sight, and down the lane, across the meadow; she caught one more glimpse of them as he rode through the for...

The countess watched him from her table, and, looking up at the earl, murmured: "Leycester is in one of his restless moods to-night." "Yes," he said, with a sigh. "What is it?--d...

For love lay lurking in the clouds and mist, I heard him singing sweetly on the mountain side: "'Tis all in vain you fly, for everywhere am I-- In every quiet v...

Stella heard a step on the threshold of the window, and turning to follow the direction of his eyes, saw the stalwart form of Lord Leycester standing in the window. He was dressed...

Side by side they walked across the meadows; the larks rising before them and soaring up to the heavens with a burst of song; the river running in silvery silence to the sea; the g...

Stella put hers into it, but reluctantly, and tried to spring, but her dress caught and she slipped forward. She would have fallen but that he was on the alert to save her. Quite ...

"Who is 'Lenore,' uncle?" It was the evening of the same day--a day never to be forgotten by Stella, a day marked with a white stone in her mental calendar. Never would she be abl...

The great clock in the Hall stables chimed the half-hour--half-past seven, and the sound came floating down the valley. Mr. Etheridge stood at the door clad in evening dress, whic...

As Stella looked up at the great beauty, she felt for the first time that her own dress, pretty as it was, was only sateen. She had not been conscious of it before, but she felt it...

"I love you," he said. Only three words, but only a woman can understand what those three words meant to Stella. She was a girl--a mere child, as Lady Wyndward had said; never, s...

He started. The words had almost the solemnity of a prophesy. "Who will dare?" he said; then he laughed. "My little, fearsome, trembling darling!" he murmured, "fear nothing or ra...

"What shall I do?" exclaimed Mr. Etheridge. Stella came to him quickly, with a little cry of dismay. "What is it, uncle? Are you ill--is it bad news? Oh, what is the matter?" An...

Lord Leycester stood for a minute or two looking after the carriage that bore Stella and her uncle away; then he returned to the house. They were a hot-headed race, these Wyndwards...

Jasper Adelstone was in love. It was some time before he would bring himself to admit it even to himself, for he was wont to pride himself on his superiority to all attacks of the...

Jasper undressed and went to bed, and slept as soundly as men of his peculiar caliber do sleep, while Scrivell was standing at the corner of a street in Covent Garden, with his han...

When Stella awoke in the morning it was with a start that she remembered the scene of last night, and that she was, with the exception of Mrs. Penfold, alone in the cottage. While...

It was the face she had seen in the miniature, changed from childhood to youth. The same blue eyes, frank, confiding, and womanish--the same golden hair clustering in short curls, ...

One hears of the devotion of a dog to its master, the love of a horse for its rider; such devotion, such love Stella received from the boy Frank. He was a very singular boy, and st...

Stella hurried Frank across the meadows, a rather difficult task, as he would insist upon talking, his teeth chattering, and his clothes dripping. "What a splendid fellow, Stella!...

Stella, turned her eyes upon him, and something like pity took possession of her for a moment. It was a womanly feeling, and it softened her reply. "I--am very sorry," she said, i...

Lord Leycester was on fire as he strode up the hill to the Hall, and that notwithstanding he was wet to the skin. He was on fire with love. He swore to himself, as he climbed up th...

"There," he said, balancing it on his finger and smiling, in his eager, impatient way--"there is the missive, Charlie. Read the superscription thereof." Lord Charles took the lett...

"I am Frank Etheridge," said Frank, looking up at Lord Charles, as the latter stopped at the little gate in the lane. "Yes, I am Frank Etheridge." And as he repeated the sentence, ...

She turned and inclined her head haughtily, and waited, as if for him to speak, but Jasper remained silent. She had sent for him; he was here! At last she spoke. "You received my...

Sleep kept afar off from Stella's eyelids that night. The momentous morrow loomed before her, at one moment filling her with a nameless dread, at another suffusing her whole being ...

Jasper Adelstone closed the door behind him, and stood looking at them. His face was very pale, his lips were tightly compressed, and there was that peculiar look of decision and ...

"Five minutes!" said Stella, warningly; and she turned her face from him, and kept her eyes fixed on the clock. "It will suffice," said Jasper. "I have to ask you to bear with me ...

Leycester looked round for a moment eagerly, then, utterly disregarding Jasper, he hurried across to Stella, who at his entrance had made an involuntary movement towards him, but h...

Leycester went down the stairs with the uncertain gait of a drunken man, and having reached the open air stood for a moment staring round him as if he were bereft of his senses; as...

As the door closed on Lord Leycester, Stella's heart seemed to leave her bosom; it was as if all hope had fled with him, and as if her doom was irrevocably fixed. For a moment she ...

"Oh, my love, my love!" She stood with her arms outstretched toward the white walls of the Hall, the moon shining over meadow and river, the night jay creaking in silence. In all...

I have carefully avoided describing Lord Leycester Wyndward as a "good" man. If to be generous, single-minded, impatient of wrong and pitiful of the wronged; if to be blessed, curs...

Time--which Lord Leycester had been so recklessly wasting in "riotous living"--passed very quiet indeed in the Thames valley, beneath the white walls of Wyndward Hall. During the ...

Lord Charles was too glad to gain Leycester's consent to leave town to care where they went, and to prevent all chance of Leycester's changing his mind, this stanch and constant fr...

Lord Charles' little plot had succeeded beyond his expectation. He had restored the prodigal and shared the fatted calf, as he deserved to do. Although it was known all over the ho...

It had come so suddenly as to almost overwhelm her; the great gift of the gods that she had been waiting, aye, and plotting for, had fallen to her at last, and her cup of triumph w...

"It certainly must have been made a hundred years after the rest of the world," said Mr. Etheridge. "Where on earth did you hear of it, Jasper?" They were standing, the painter, J...

Leycester had reached Carlyon on foot. He had left the house in the morning, simply saying that he was going for a walk, and that they were not to wait any meal for him. During the...

Lenore sat in her dainty room, her long golden hair flooding her white shoulders, her fair face reflected in the Venetian mirror with its edging of antique work and trimming of lac...

"After all, there is nothing like English scenery; this is very beautiful. I don't suppose you could get a greater variety of opal tints in one view than lies before us now, but th...