The Small House at Allington

THE THWACKINGS THE STORY OF BHANAVAR THE BEAUTIFUL THE THWACKINGS It was ordained that Shibli Bagarag, nephew to the renowned Baba Mustapha, chief barber to the Court of Persia, ...

Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manne...

October, shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday. The brown beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of moveless cloud hung about the horizon, mounded ...

Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written or formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. Th...

Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet s...

In the morning that followed this night, great gossip was interchanged between Raynham and Lobourne. The village told how Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, had his Pick feloniously...

As soon as they could escape, the boys got together into an obscure corner of the park, and there took counsel of their extremity. "Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his ...

A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the river from a knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne's Bower. To this spot Richard h...

Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as that young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in his easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlou...

In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals of th...

To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole structure built by good resolution, see...

Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate, in dolefullest mood, and suffered the gravest men...

Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and, as the mystery of the apparition that had frightened little Clare was never solved on the stage of events at Raynham, where dread walked the...

It was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The Magnetic Age: the Age of violent attractions, when to hear mention of love is dangerous, and to see it, a communication of the di...

All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid canter, and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted world, and the great Realm of Mystery, from which he...

He had landed on an island of the still-vexed Bermoothes. The world lay wrecked behind him: Raynham hung in mists, remote, a phantom to the vivid reality of this white hand which h...

Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in the fortunes and future of the systematized youth, had occasionally mentioned names of families whose alliance according to a...

The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed. "Is it possible," quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he had ushered his client into his private room, "that you will consent...

The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir...

Away with Systems! Away with a corrupt World! Let us breathe the air of the Enchanted Island. Golden lie the meadows: golden run the streams; red gold is on the pine-stems. The su...

Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old brood of dragons. Wherever there is romance, these monsters come by inimical attraction. Because the heavens are certainly propi...

By twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey knew that Berry, the baronet's man, had arrived post-haste from town, with orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither...

For three weeks Richard had to remain in town and endure the teachings of the System in a new atmosphere. He had to sit and listen to men of science who came to renew their intimac...

Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm-shaded, grass-bordered lane leading down from Raynham to Belthorpe. The pale eye of twilight was shut. The wind had tossed up the b...

When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him onward, he was in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only a strong fist had knocked him down and stunned h...

Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero, and a consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at his chariot-wheels, that he is generally the ...

On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was accustomed to consult his gold watch for practical purposes, and sniff freedom and the forthcoming dinner, a burglarious foot ent...

"In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence, punish one of the two lightly," is the dictum of The Pilgrim's's Scrip. It is possible for young heads to conceive proper...

Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is not always he on whom beauty works its most conquering influence. It is the dull commonplace man into whose slow brain she d...

Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his fare, the ferryman does not need to be to...

And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to one of Dian's Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She has nobly preserved the mask imposed by comed...

General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of organs and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs. Berry's abode, proved that Dan Cupid had veritably ...

Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything beneath the dignity of a philosopher. When one has attained that fe...

And now the author of the System was on trial under the eyes of the lady who loved him. What so kind as they? Yet are they very rigorous, those soft watchful woman's eyes. If you a...

It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam, and flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A...

Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was married, under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the approbation of her kinsfolk, to the husband that ...

A Lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard in his rides and walks. She passed him rather obviously and often. She was very handsome; a bold beauty, with shining black ha...

Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful woman. "Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish, "I cannot get that legend of the Serpent fr...

One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little man; a poet in bad circumstances; a decrepit butterfly chained to a disappointed inkstand, will not put out strenuous energies ...

you? You haven't seen me in one of my characters--not Sir Julius: wait a couple of minutes." She ran out. A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame. Her black hair was sc...

At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few attractions to other than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and rain, the potent nobleman, Lord Mountfalcon, still l...

Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity of a philosopher who says, 'Tis now time; and the satisfaction of a man who has not arrived thereat without a struggle. He had...

A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely behind. "Do you want to try my nerves, my de...

Briareus reddening angrily over the sea--what is that vaporous Titan? And Hesper set in his rosy garland--why looks he so implacably sweet? It is that one has left that bright home...

They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy had the news first in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn. Ripton did not say that he had employed his vacation h...

The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight. Adrian, wearing a composedly amused express...

"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him bear the worst that could be. Return at once--he has asked for you. I can hardly write intelligibly, but I will tel...

I. THE POLES PRELUDE II. THE EXPEDITION BY MOONLIGHT III. WILFRID'S DIPLOMACY IV. EMILIA'S FIRST TRIAL IN PUBLIC V. EMILIA PLAYS ON THE CORNET VI. ...

XI. IN WHICH WE SEE THE MAGNANIMITY THAT IS IN BEER. XII. SHOWING HOW SENTIMENT AND PASSION TAKE THE DISEASE OF LOVE XIII. CONTAINS A SHORT DISCOURSE ON PU...

XVIII. RETURN OF THE SENTIMENTALIST INTO BONDAGE XIX. LIFE AT BROOKFIELD. XX. BY WILMING WEIR XXI. RETURN OF MR. PERICLES XXII. THE PITFALL OF SENTIMENT XXII...

XXVI. SUGGESTS THAT THE COMIC MASK HAS SOME KINSHIP WITH A SKULL XXVII. SMALL LIFE AT BROOKFIELD XXVIII. GEORGIANA FORD XXIX. FIRST SCOURGING OF THE FINE SHADES XXX. ...

XXXIV. INDICATES THE DEGRADATION OF BROOKFIELD, TOGETHER WITH CERTAIN PROCEEDINGS OF THE YACHT XXXV. MRS. CHUMP'S EPISTLE XXXVI. ANOTHER PITFALL OF SENTIMENT XX...

XL. SHE TASTES DESPAIR XLI. SHE IS FOUND XLII. DEFECTION OF MR. PERICLES FROM THE BROOKFIELD CIRCLE XLIII. IN WHICH WE SEE WILFRID KINDLING XLIV. ON THE HIPPO...

L. EMILIA BEGINS TO FEEL MERTHYR'S POWER LI. A CHAPTER INTERRUPTED BY THE PHILOSOPHER LII. A FRESH DUETT BETWEEN WILFRID AND EMILIA LIII. ALDERMAN'S BOUQUET L...

We are to make acquaintance with some serious damsels, as this English generation knows them, and at a season verging upon May. The ladies of Brookfield, Arabella, Cornelia, and Ad...

Half of a rosy mounting full moon was on the verge of the East as the ladies, with attendant cavaliers, passed, humming softly, through the garden-gates. Arabella had, by right of ...

The next morning there were many "tra-las" and "tum-te-turns" over the family breakfast-table; a constant humming and crying, "I have it"; and after two or three bars, baffled paus...

The circle which the ladies of Brookfield were designing to establish just now, was of this receipt:--Celebrities, London residents, and County notables, all in their severally due...

The night was warm under a slowly-floating moon. Full of compassion for the poor girl, who had moved him if she had failed in winning the assembly, Wilfrid stepped into the garden,...

"My father is one of the most wonderful men in the whole world!" Wilfrid lifted an eyelid. "He is one of the first-violins at the Italian Opera!" The gallant cornet's critical a...

While Emilia was giving Wilfrid her history in the garden, the ladies of Brookfield were holding consultation over a matter which was well calculated to perplex and irritate them e...

The windows of Brookfield were thrown open to the air of May, and bees wandered into the rooms, gold spots of sunshine danced along the floors. The garden-walks were dazzling, and ...

Hardly had the last sound of the drum passed out of hearing, when the elastic thunder of a fresh one claimed attention. The truth being, that the Junction Club of Ipley and Hillfor...

Richford was an easy drive from Brookfield, through lanes of elm and white hawthorn. The ladies never acted so well as when they were in the presence of a fact which they acknowle...

At half-past nine of the clock on the evening of this memorable day, a body of five-and-twenty stout young fellows, prize-winners, wrestlers, boxers, and topers, of the Hillford Cl...

A pillar of dim silver rain fronted the moon on the hills. Emilia walked hurriedly, with her head bent, like a penitent: now and then peeping up and breathing to the keen scent of ...

On the morrow Wilfrid was gone. No one had seen him go. Emilia, while she touched the keys of a muted piano softly in the morning quiet of the house, had heard the front-door close...

Mr. Pole was one of those men whose characters are read off at a glance. He was neat, insignificant, and nervously cheerful; with the eyes of a bird, that let you into no interior....

A letter from Brookfield apprised Wilfrid that Mr. Pole had brought Mrs. Chump to the place as a visitor, and that she was now in the house. Formal as a circular, the idea of it ap...

"Seen Wilfrid?" was Mr. Pole's first cheery call to his daughters, on his return. An answer on that head did not seem to be required by him, for he went on: "Ah the boy's improved....

Emilia sat in her old place under the dwarf pine. Mr. Powys had brought her back to Brookfield, where she heard that Wilfrid had been seen; and now her heart was in contest with an...

"It is hers," said Emilia. He opened it and pointed to his initials. She looked in his face. "Are you very ill?" Adela turned round from Edward's neighbouring head. "Who is ill?...

Meantime Wilfrid was leading a town-life and occasionally visiting Stornley. He was certainly not in love with Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, but he was in harness to that lady. In ...

Gossip of course was excited on the subject of the choice of a partner made by the member for the county. Cornelia placed her sisters in one of their most pleasing of difficulties....

A half-circle of high-banked greensward, studded with old park-trees, hung round the roar of the water; distant enough from the white-twisting fall to be mirrored on a smooth-heave...

At this season Mr. Pericles reappeared. He had been, he said, through "Paris, Turin, Milano, Veniss, and by Trieste over the Summering to Vienna on a tour for a voice." And in no p...

Cornelia sat with a clenched hand. "You are rich and he is poor," was the keynote of her thoughts, repeated from minute to minute. "And it is gold gives you the right in the world'...

All Wilfrid's diplomacy was now brought into play to baffle Mr. Pericles, inspire Emilia with the spirit of secresy, and carry on his engagement to two women to their common satisf...

Mr. Pole was closeted in his City counting-house with Mr. Pericles, before a heap of papers and newly-opened foreign letters; to one of which, bearing a Russian stamp, he referred ...

Braintop's knock at the door had been unheeded for some minutes. At last Emilia let him in. The brandy and biscuits were placed on a table, and Emilia resumed her watch by Mr. Pole...

It was midnight. Mr. Pole had appeased his imagination with a chop, and was trying to revive the memory of his old after-theatre night carouses by listening to a song which Emilia ...

For days after the foregoing scene, Brookfield was unconscious of what had befallen it. Wilfrid was trying his yacht, the ladies were preparing for the great pleasure-gathering on ...

Georgiana Ford would have had little claim among the fair saints to be accepted by them as one of their order. Her reputation for coldness was derived from the fact of her having s...

The card of Mr. Powys found Arabella alone in the house. Mrs. Lupin was among village school-children; Mrs. Chump had gone to London to see whether anything was known of Mr. Pole a...

Flying from port to port to effect an exchange of stewards (the endless occupation of a yacht proprietor), Wilfrid had no tidings from Brookfield. The night before the gathering on...

"I am curious to see what you will make of this gathering. I can cook a small company myself. It requires the powers of a giantess to mix a body of people in the open air; and all ...

Despite the pouring in of the flood of guests about the tables, Mrs. Chump and Mr. Pole sat apparently unconcerned in their places, and, as if to show their absolute indifference t...

On reaching home that night, Arabella surprised herself thinking, in the midst of her anguish: "Whatever is said of us, it cannot be said that there is a house where the servants h...

Lady Charlotte was too late for Emilia, when she went forth to her to speak for Wilfrid. She found the youth Braintop resting heavily against a tree, muttering to himself that he h...

When Mrs. Chump had turned her back on Brookfield, the feelings of the outcast woman were too deep for much distinctly acrimonious sensation toward the ladies; but their letters so...

A knock at Merthyr's chamber called him out while he sat writing to Marini on the national business. He heard Georgiana's voice begging him to come to her quickly. When he saw her ...

"My voice! I have my voice!" Emilia had cried it out to herself almost aloud, on the journey from Devon to London. The landscape slipping under her eyes, with flashing grey pools ...

The pride of punctuality brought Sir Purcell to that appointed seat in the gardens about a minute in advance of Emilia. She came hurrying up to him with three fingers over her lips...

Emilia stretched out her hand and said, "Good-bye." Seeing that the hardened girl, with her dead eyelids, did not appear to feel herself at his mercy, and also that Sir Purcell's f...

"Sei buon' Italiana?" Across what chasm did the words come to her? It seemed but a minutes and again many hours back, that she had asked that question of a little fellow, who, if...

Up the centre aisle of Hillford Church, the Tinleys (late as usual) were seen trooping for morning service in midwinter. There was a man in the rear known to be a man by the sound ...

[Georgiana Ford to Wilfrid:] "I have omitted replying to your first letter, not because of the nature of its contents: nor do I write now in answer to your second because of the p...

Dexterously as Wilfrid has turned Tracy to his uses by means of the foregoing correspondence, in doing so he had exposed himself to the retributive poison administered by that cunn...

Penarvon castle lay over the borders of Monmouthshire. Thither, on a night of frosty moonlight, troops of carriages were hurrying with the usual freightage for a country ball:--the...

Emilia was in skilful hands, and against anything less powerful than a lover mounted upon Hippogriff, might have been shielded. What is poison to most girls, Merthyr prescribed for...

When the force of Wilfrid's embrace had died out from her body, Emilia conceived wilfully that she had seen an apparition, so strange, sudden, and wild had been his coming and goin...

Three days passed as a running dream to Emilia. During that period she might have been hurried off to Italy without uttering a remonstrance. Merthyr's spirited talk of the country ...

"My brother tells me it is your wish to see Mr. Wilfrid Pole." Emilia's "Yes" came faintly in answer to Georgiana's cold accents. "Have you considered what you are doing in expre...

Emilia remained locked up with her mother all that evening. The good little shrill woman, tender-eyed and slatternly, had to help try on dresses, and run about for pins, and expres...

Commonplaces continued to be Wilfrid's refuge, for sentiment was surging mightily within him. The commonplaces concerning father, sisters, health, weather, sickened him when uttere...

"Don't blame yourself, my Wilfrid." Emilia spoke thus, full of pity for him, and in her adorable, deep-fluted tones, after the effective stop he had come to. The 'my Wilfrid' mad...

A minute after his parting with Emilia, Wilfrid swung round in the street and walked back at great strides. "What a fool I was not to see that she was acting indifference!" he crie...

"Let me hear to-morrow." Wilfrid repeated Emilia's petition in the tone she had used, and sent a delight through his veins even with that clumsy effort of imitation. He walked from...

There is a man among our actors here who may not be known to you. It had become the habit of Sir Purcell Barren's mind to behold himself as under a peculiarly malign shadow. Very y...

On a wild April morning, Emilia rose from her bed and called to mind a day of the last year's Spring when she had watched the cloud streaming up, and felt that it was the curtain o...

By the park-gates that evening, Wilfrid received a letter from the hands of Tracy Runningbrook. It said: "I am not able to see you now. When I tell you that I will see you before I...

A sharp breath of air had passed along the dews, and all the young green of the fresh season shone in white jewels. The sky, set with very dim distant stars, was in grey light roun...

A wreck from the last Lombard revolt landed upon our shores in June. His right arm was in a sling, and his Italian servant following him, kept close by his side, with a ready hand,...

I. THE KENTISH FAMILY II. QUEEN ANNE'S FARM III. SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY DEMON IV. THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE V. THE SISTERS MEET VI. EDWA...

XII. AT THE THEATRE. XIII. THE FARMER SPEAKS XIV. BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT XI. A VISIT TO WREXBY HALL XII. AT FAIRLY PARK XVII. A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BRE...

XXI. GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS XXII. EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE XXIII. MAJOR PERCY WARING XXIV. WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH XXV. OF TH...

XXX. THE EXPIATION XXXI. THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND XXXII. LA QUESTION D'ARGENT XXXIII. EDWARD'S RETURN XXXIV. FATHER AND SON XXXV. THE NIGHT BEFORE XXXVI. ...

XXXIX. DAHLIA GOES HOME XL. A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED XLI. DAHLIA'S FRENZY XLII. ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE XLIII. RHODA PLEDGES HE...

Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The distinction survives there between Kentish women ...

Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establ...

"Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry," ejaculated Anthony, whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a...

Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss until the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily, he informed her that her uncle had...

When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live for anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting with Robert, the journey to London, which had l...

Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the country--are honourable as England's name, solid as her pr...

Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had...

That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the white square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full bow of glass against the sunlight, and great ...

Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved her, sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal in Rhoda's sight, and exquisite torture of t...

Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre was one part of his projected hospital...

Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room, sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief ac...

Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the hazy margin which may extend illimitably, o...

Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father returning from London, on a specified day. He was eager to be asking cheerful questions of Dahlia's health and happi...

The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of it well-nigh impossible. And yet si...

Next day, while Squire Blancove was superintending the laying down of lines for a new carriage drive in his park, as he walked slowly up the green slope he perceived Farmer Fleming...

Fairly, Lord Elling's seat in Hampshire, lay over the Warbeach river; a white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and winter masts of the yachting squadron. The h...

Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was of another character. The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his profession; fifth of a family that had ...

A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's old reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear rascals throughout a sailor-breeding ...

The night was warm with the new-fallen snow, though the stars sparkled coldly. A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky by a sharp puff from due North, and the ...

The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, ...

Mrs. Boulby's ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won her bet. What was heroism to Warbeach, ...

The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and abandoned as a sickening task. Like an idle boy with his holiday imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightma...

Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert sat with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to Dahlia and Rhoda, too proudly not to seem...

When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing, the corners of the earth cannot hide from him--the mornings are like halls full of light. Robert had spent hi...

It requires, happily, many years of an ordinary man's life to teach him to believe in the exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy: yet, when ingenuous minds have ful...

Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of Fashion, where he mounted horse and...

The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of ...

Accompanying this pleasant, pregnant bit of paper, possessed of such admirable literary excellence, were the following flimsy lines from Edward's self, to Algernon incomprehensible...

So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a part of every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative that is made to revolve more or less upon its o...

Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's name, were Robert and Major Waring. When the cab had flown by, they fell back into their seats, and smoked; the...

The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain the cheque and feel the money in his poc...

Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on the title, which smelt to him of com...

Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood with the farmer, who, in his stiff b...

In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his heart, and his father had breathed some ...

A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an end; but Rhoda had become mentally ste...

At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of him who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She started to her side, got possession of ...

A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose to expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain ...

This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in one direction and another, he found that he had missed his way. Down innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed hou...

Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in Robert's lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a movement of his limbs or of his mind, and a...

So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat, we may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect security; but when we suffer our mind...

On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart. Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be unaware of any delay, and mildly staring, r...

Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the mournful rim about her eyelids, but a ...

Anthony had robbed the Bank. The young squire was aware of the fact, and had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the Bank, upon one condition. So much, Rhod...

She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane. Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different points, more and more distant, and then she...

Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock of the door. At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by saying that he hoped s...

No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's bed-room, and said, "Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her husband." Mechanically Rhoda took the k...

Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day. It is day that follows, notwithstanding...

Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by telling him that his friend Robert was i...

I. ABOVE BUTTONS II. THE HERITAGE OR THE SOY III. THE DAUGHTERS OR THE SHEARS IV. ON BOARD THE JOCASTA V. THE FAMILY AND THE FUNERAL VI. MY GEN...

VIII. INTRODUCES AN ECCENTRIC IX. THE COUNTESS IN LOW SOCIETY X. MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD AGAIN XI. DOINGS AT AN INN XII. IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ...

XIV. THE COUNTESS DESCRIBES THE FIELD OF ACTION XV. A CAPTURE XVI. LEADS TO A SMALL SKIRMISH BETWEEN ROSE AND EVAN XVII. IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR XVI...

XIX. SECOND DESPATCH OF THE COUNTESS XX. BREAK-NECK LEAP XXI. TRIBULATIONS AND TACTICS OF THE COUNTESS XXII. IN WHICH THE DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT MEL HAVE TO ...

XXVI. MRS. MEL MAKES A BED FOR HERSELF AND FAMILY XXVII. EXHIBITS ROSE'S GENERALSHIP; EVAN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE SECOND FIDDLE; AND THE WRETCHEDNESS OF THE COUNTESS...

XXXII. IN WHICH EVAN'S LIGHT BEGINS TO TWINKLE AGAIN XXXIII. THE HERO TAKES HIS RANK IN THE ORCHESTRA XXXIV. A PAGAN SACRIFICE XXXV. ROSE WOUNDED XXXVI. BEFORE BREAK...

XXXIX. IN THE DOMAIN OF TAILORDOM XL. IN WHICH THE COUNTESS STILL SCENTS GAME XLI. REVEALS AN ABOMINABLE PLOT OF THE BROTHERS COGGLESBY XLII. JULIANA XLIII. RO...

ABOVE BUTTONS Long after the hours when tradesmen are in the habit of commencing business, the shutters of a certain shop in the town of Lymport-on-the-Sea remained significantly ...

THE HERITAGE OF THE SON Toward evening, a carriage drove up to the door of the muted house, and the card of Lady Racial, bearing a hurried line in pencil, was handed to the widow....

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SHEARS Three daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec. Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters: first in the...

ON BOARD THE JOCASTA From the Tagus to the Thames the Government sloop-of-war, Jocasta, had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed diplomatist and his ...

THE FAMILY AND THE FUNERAL It was the evening of the second day since the arrival of the black letter in London from Lymport, and the wife of the brewer and the wife of the Major ...

MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD The postillion had every reason to believe that he carried a real gentleman behind him; in other words, a purse long and liberal. He judged by all the poi...

MOTHER AND SON Rare as epic song is the man who is thorough in what he does. And happily so; for in life he subjugates us, and he makes us bondsmen to his ashes. It was in the ord...

INTRODUCES AN ECCENTRIC At the Aurora--one of those rare antiquated taverns, smelling of comfortable time and solid English fare, that had sprung up in the great coffee days, when...

THE COUNTESS IN LOW SOCIETY By dint of stratagems worthy of a Court intrigue, the Countess de Saldar contrived to traverse the streets of Lymport, and enter the house where she wa...

MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD AGAIN Near a milestone, under the moonlight, crouched the figure of a woman, huddled with her head against her knees, and careless hair falling to the sum...

DOINGS AT AN INN What every traveller sighs to find, was palatably furnished by the Green Dragon of Fallowfield--a famous inn, and a constellation for wandering coachmen. There pl...

IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ONE QUALITY OF WINE To proclaim that yon ribs of beef and yonder ruddy Britons have met, is to furnish matter for an hour's comfortable meditation. ...

THE MATCH OF FALLOW FIELD AGAINST BECKLEY The dramatic proportions to which ale will exalt the sentiments within us, and our delivery of them, are apt to dwindle and shrink even b...

THE COUNTESS DESCRIBES THE FIELD OF ACTION Now, to clear up a point or two: You may think the Comic Muse is straining human nature rather toughly in making the Countess de Saldar ...

A CAPTURE The three youths were standing in the portico when the Countess appeared among them. She singled out him who was specially obnoxious to her, and sweetly inquired the dir...

LEADS TO A SMALL SKIRMISH BETWEEN ROSE AND EVAN Lady Jocelyn belonged properly to that order which the Sultans and the Roxalanas of earth combine to exclude from their little game...

IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR The only philosophic method of discovering what a young woman means, and what is in her mind, is that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by fo...

IN WHICH EVAN CALLS HIMSELF GENTLEMAN The young cavalier perused that letter again in memory. Genuine, or a joke of the enemy, it spoke wakening facts to him. He leapt from the sp...

SECOND DESPATCH OF THE COUNTESS We do not advance very far in this second despatch, and it will be found chiefly serviceable for the indications it affords of our General's skill ...

BREAK-NECK LEAP The August sun was in mid-sky, when a troop of ladies and cavaliers issued from the gates of Beckley Court, and winding through the hopgardens, emerged on the cult...

TRIBULATIONS AND TACTICS OF THE COUNTESS 'You have murdered my brother, Rose Jocelyn!' 'Don't say so now.' Such was the interchange between the two that loved the senseless yout...

IN WHICH THE DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT MEL HAVE TO DIGEST HIM AT DINNER You must know, if you would form an estimate of the Countess's heroic impudence, that a rumour was current in ...

TREATS OF A HANDKERCHIEF Running through Beckley Park, clear from the chalk, a little stream gave light and freshness to its pasturage. Near where it entered, a bathing-house of w...

THE COUNTESS MAKES HERSELF FELT There is a peculiar reptile whose stroke is said to deprive men of motion. On the day after the great Mel had stalked the dinner-table of Beckley C...

IN WHICH THE STREAM FLOWS MUDDY AND CLEAR An Irish retriever-pup of the Shannon breed, Pat by name, was undergoing tuition on the sward close by the kennels, Rose's hunting-whip b...

MRS. MEL MAKES A BED FOR HERSELF AND FAMILY The last person thought of by her children at this period was Mrs. Mel: nor had she been thinking much of them till a letter from Mr. G...

EXHIBITS ROSE'S GENERALSHIP; EVAN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE SECOND FIDDLE; AND THE WRETCHEDNESS OF THE COUNTESS We left Rose and Evan on their way to Lady Jocelyn. At the library-door ...

TOM COGGLESEY'S PROPOSITION The appearance of a curricle and a donkey-cart within the gates of Beckley Court, produced a sensation among the men of the lower halls, and a couple o...

PRELUDE TO AN ENGAGEMENT Money was a strong point with the Elburne brood. The Jocelyns very properly respected blood; but being, as Harry, their youngest representative, termed th...

THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART I At the South-western extremity of the park, with a view extending over wide meadows and troubled mill waters, yellow barn-roofs and weather-gra...

THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART II. If it be a distinct point of wisdom to hug the hour that is, then does dinner amount to a highly intellectual invitation to man, for it furni...

IN WHICH EVANS LIGHT BEGINS TO TWINKLE AGAIN The dowagers were now firmly planted on Olympus. Along the grass lay the warm strong colours of the evening sun, reddening the pine-st...

THE HERO TAKES HIS RANK IN THE ORCHESTRA The Countess was not in her dressing-room when Evan presented himself. She was in attendance on Mrs. Bonner, Conning said; and the primnes...

A PAGAN SACRIFICE Three steps from the Countess's chamber door, the knot of Evan's resolution began to slacken. The clear light of his simple duty grew cloudy and complex. His pri...

ROSE WOUNDED The light of morning was yet cold along the passages of the house when Polly Wheedle, hurrying to her young mistress, met her loosely dressed and with a troubled face...

BEFORE BREAKFAST Cold through the night the dark-fringed stream had whispered under Evan's eyes, and the night breeze voiced 'Fool, fool!' to him, not without a distant echo in hi...

THE RETREAT FROM BECKLEY Never would the Countess believe that brother of hers, idiot as by nature he might be, and heir to unnumbered epithets, would so far forget what she had d...

IN WHICH WE HAVE TO SEE IN THE DARK So ends the fourth act of our comedy. After all her heroism and extraordinary efforts, after, as she feared, offending Providence--after facin...

IN THE DOMAIN OF TAILORDOM There was peace in Mr. Goren's shop. Badgered Ministers, bankrupt merchants, diplomatists with a headache--any of our modern grandees under difficulties...

IN WHICH THE COUNTESS STILL SCENTS GAME Mr. Raikes and his friend Frank Remand, surnamed Franko, to suit the requirements of metre, in which they habitually conversed, were walkin...

REVEALS AN ABOMINABLE PLOT OF THE BROTHERS COGGLESBY A lively April day, with strong gusts from the Southwest, and long sweeping clouds, saluted the morning coach from London to L...

JULIANA The sick night-light burned steadily in Juliana's chamber. On a couch, beside her bed, Caroline lay sleeping, tired with a long watch. Two sentences had been passed on Jul...

ROSE Have you seen a young audacious spirit smitten to the earth? It is a singular study; and, in the case of young women, a trap for inexperienced men. Rose, who had commanded an...

CONTAINS A WARNING TO ALL CONSPIRATORS This, if you have done me the favour to read it aright, has been a chronicle of desperate heroism on the part of almost all the principal pe...

IN WHICH THE SHOP BECOMES THE CENTRE OF ATTRACTION Under the first lustre of a May-night, Evan was galloping over the moon-shadowed downs toward Beckley. At the ridge commanding t...

A LOVERS' PARTING Now, to suppose oneself the fashioner of such a chain of events as this which brought the whole of the Harrington family in tender unity together once more, woul...

A YEAR LATER, THE COUNTESS DE SALDAR DE SANCORVO TO HER SISTER CAROLINE 'Rome. 'Let the post-mark be my reply to your letter received through the Consulate,...

I. UP MONTE MOTTERONE II. ON THE HEIGHTS III. SIGNORINA VITTORIA IV. AMMIANI'S INTERCESSION V. THE SPY VI. THE WARNING VII. BARTO RIZZO VI...

IX. IN VERONA X. THE POPE'S MOUTH XI. LAURA PIAVENI XII. THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY XIII. THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO...

XIV. AT THE MAESTRO'S DOOR XV. AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT XVI. COUNTESS AMMIANI XVII. IN THE PIAZZA D'ARMI XVIII. THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH XIX. THE ...

XX. THE OPERA OF CAMILLA XXI. THE THIRD ACT XXII. WILFRID COMES FORWARD XXIII. FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT XXIV. ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO XXV. ACR...

XXIX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE TOBACCO RIOTS --RINALDO GUIDASCARPI XXX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN XXXI. EPISO...

XXXIII. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN-- THE STORY OF THE GUIDASCARPI--THE VICTORY OF THE VOLUNTEERS XXXIV. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND TH...

XL. THROUGH THE WINTER XLI. THE INTERVIEW XLII. THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY XLIII. THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN XLIV. THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND XLV. SHOWS MANY ...

From Monte Motterone you survey the Lombard plain. It is a towering dome of green among a hundred pinnacles of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn the summit of the mountain has an ea...

He was a man of middle stature, thin, and even frail, as he stood defined against the sky; with the complexion of the student, and the student's aspect. The attentive droop of his ...

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring friends. "She is one of us," he pursued; "a dau...

It was a surprise to all of them, save to Agostino Balderini, who passed his inspecting glance from face to face, marking the effect of the announcement. Corte gazed at her heavily...

Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope. But it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free movements. They hung together intertwisted in ...

A mountain ascended by these children of the forcible Isle, is a mountain to be captured, and colonized, and absolutely occupied for a term; so that Vittoria soon found herself and...

A week following the day of meetings on the Motterone, Luigi the spy was in Milan, making his way across the Piazza de' Mercanti. He entered a narrow court, one of those which were...

The importance of the matters extracted from Luigi does not lie on the surface; it will have to be seen through Barto Rizzo's mind. This man regarded himself as the mainspring of t...

IN VERONA The lieutenant read these lines, as he clattered through the quiet streets toward the Porta Tosa: 'DEAR FRIEND,--I am glad that you remind me of our old affection, for ...

THE POPE'S MOUTH Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do. He had not found it difficult to outstrip the lieutenant (who had to visit Brescia on his way) and reach the gates o...

LAURA PIAVENI After dark on the same day antecedent to the outbreak, Vittoria, with her faithful Beppo at her heels, left her mother to run and pass one comforting hour in the soc...

THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY The two women were facing one another in a painful silence when Carlo Ammiani was announced to them. He entered with a rapid stride, and struck his hands toge...

THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO There was no concealment as to Laura's object in making request for the services of Beppo. She herself knew it to be obvious that she intended to pr...

AT THE MAESTRO'S DOOR The house of the Maestro Rocco Ricci turned off the Borgo della Stella. Carlo Ammiani conducted Vittoria to the maestro's door. They conversed very little on...

AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT Ammiani hurried Vittoria out of the street to make safety sure. 'Home,' she said, ashamed of her excitement, and not daring to speak more words, lest ...

COUNTESS AMMIANI Countess Ammiani was a Venetian lady of a famous House, the name of which is as a trumpet sounding from the inner pages of the Republic. Her face was like a leaf ...

IN THE PIAZZA D'ARMI Carlo and Luciano followed the regiments to the Piazza d'Armi, drawn after them by that irresistible attraction to youths who have as yet had no shroud of gri...

THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH We quit the Piazza d'Armi. Rumour had its home in Milan. On their way to the caffe La Scala, Luciano and Carlo (who held together, determined to be take...

THE PRIMA DONNA 'Whover is in my box is my guest,' said the countess, adding a convulsive imperative pressure on Carlo's arm, to aid the meaning of her deep underbreath. She was a...

THE OPERA OF CAMILLA She was dressed like a noble damsel from the hands of Titian. An Italian audience cannot but be critical in their first glance at a prima donna, for they are ...

THE THIRD ACT The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment of Young Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your mind's hearing any notion of the fine music of Rocco Ricc...

WILFRID COMES FORWARD An order for the immediate arrest of Vittoria was brought round to the stage at the fall of the curtain by Captain Weisspriess, and delivered by him on the s...

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT Vittoria slept on like an outworn child, while Giacinta nodded over her, and started, and wondered what embowelled mountain they might be passing through...

ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO Nothing was distinguishable for the flying couple save the high-road winding under rock and forest, and here and there a coursing water in the de...

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS After parting from Vittoria, Angelo made his way to an inn, where he ate and drank like a man of the fields, and slept with the power of one from noon till af...

THE DUEL IN THE PASS Meanwhile Captain Weisspriess had not been idle. Standing at a blunt angle of the ways converging upon Vittoria's presumed destination, he had roused up the g...

A NEW ORDEAL The old city of Meran faces Southward to the yellow hills of Italy, across a broad vale, between two mountain-walls and torrent-waters. With one hand it takes the bou...

THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO Vittoria knew better than Laura that the task was easy; she had but to override her aversion to the show of trifling with a dead passion; and when she thought...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE TOBACCO-RIOTS--RINALDO GUIDASCARPI Anna von Lenkenstein was one who could wait for vengeance. Lena punished on the spot, and punished herse...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN The same hand which brought Rinaldo's letter to his brother delivered a message from Barto Rizzo, bidding Angelo to start...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER Countess d'Isorella's peculiar mission to Milan was over with the victory of the city. She undertook personally to d...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES--THE WHITE UMBRELLA--THE DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDASCARPI The king crossed the Mincio. The Marshal, threatened on his lef...

Rain fell as from the forehead of thunder. From black eve to black dawn the women were among dead and dying men, where the lanterns trailed a slow flame across faces that took the ...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN--THE STORY OF THE GUIDASCARPI--THE VICTORY OF THE VOLUNTEERS The smoke of a pistol-shot thinned away while there was yet...

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO--THE MEETING AT ROVEREDO At Schio there was no medical attendance to be obtained for Count Karl, and he begged so piteo...

CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN--VITTORIA'S PERPLEXITY The fall of Vicenza turned a tide that had overflowed its barriers with force enough to roll it to the Adriatic. From that day...

A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT The Lenkenstein ladies returned to Milan proudly in the path of the army which they had followed along the city walls on the black March midnight. The ladies ...

ON LAGO MAGGIORE Carlo's hours were passed chiefly across the lake, in the Piedmontese valleys. When at Pallanza he was restless, and he shunned the two or three minutes of privac...

VIOLETTA D'ISORELLA The villa inhabited by Countess d'Isorella was on the water's edge, within clear view of the projecting Villa Ricciardi, in that darkly-wooded region of the la...

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN Captain Weisspriess replied to Carlo Ammiani promptly, naming Camerlata by Como, as the place where he would meet him. He stated at the end of some temperate ...

THROUGH THE WINTER Weisspriess and Wilfrid made their way toward Milan together, silently smoking, after one attempt at conversation, which touched on Vittoria's marriage; but whe...

THE INTERVIEW Merthyr saw Laura first. He thought that Vittoria must be lying on her couch: but Laura simply figured her arm in a sling, and signified, more than said, that Vittor...

THE SHADOW ON CONSPIRACY Merthyr left the house at Laura's whispered suggestion. He was agitated beyond control, for Vittoria had fallen with her eyes fixed on him; and at times t...

THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN Barto Rizzo had silence about him without having to ask for it, when he followed Violetta into Countess Ammiani's saloon of reception. Carlo was leaning ...

THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND When they were alone Merthyr said: "I cannot give many minutes, not much time. I have to speak to your husband." She answered: "Give me many minutes--muc...

SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END Until daylight Merthyr sat by himself, trying to realize the progressive steps of the destiny which seemed like a visible hand upon Count Am...

THE LAST There is hard winter overhead in the mountains when Italian Spring walks the mountain-sides with flowers, and hangs deep valley-walls with flowers half fruit; the sources...

I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT III. DIPWELL FARM IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR V. I HAVE A DEAR FRIEND VI. ...

VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD VIII. JANET ILCHESTER IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED X. AN EXPEDITION XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT XII. ...

XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGH...

XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES XXVIII. ...

XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN. XXXVII. JANET ...

XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF...

XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE . XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL ...

LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND LV....

I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION One midnight of a winter month the sleepers in Riversley Grange were awakened by a ringing of the outer bell and blows upon the great hall-doors. Squi...

AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT That night stands up without any clear traces about it or near it, like the brazen castle of romance round which the sea-tide flows. My father must ...

DIPWELL FARM In rain or in sunshine this old farmhouse had a constant resemblance to a wall-flower; and it had the same moist earthy smell, except in the kitchen, where John and M...

I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR Though I had not previously seen a postillion in my life, I gazed on the pair bobbing regularly on their horses before me, without a thought upon the ma...

I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND Heriot was the name of the head boy of the school. Boddy was the name of one of the ushers. They were both in love with Julia Rippenger. It was my fortune to ...

A TALE OF A GOOSE From that hour till the day Heriot's aunt came to see me, I lived systematically out of myself in extreme flights of imagination, locking my doors up, as it were...

A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD I woke very early, though I had taken kindly to my pillow, as I found by my having an arm round my companion's neck, and her fingers intertwisted with mine...

JANET ILCHESTER I was a prisoner, captured by fraud, and with five shillings and a penny still remaining to me for an assurance of my power to enjoy freedom. Osric and Kiomi did n...

AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED A dream that my father lay like a wax figure in a bed gave me thoughts of dying. I was ill and did not know it, and imagined that my despair at the...

AN EXPEDITION I wondered audibly where the Bench was when Temple and I sat together alone at Squire Gregory's breakfast-table next morning, very thirsty for tea. He said it was a ...

THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT It was London city, and the Bench was the kernel of it to me. I throbbed with excitement, though I sat looking out of the windows into the s...

WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE It seemed to me that I had but taken a turn from right to left, or gone round a wheel, when I repeated the same words, and I heard Temple somew...

WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA Captain Welsh soon conquered us. The latest meal we had eaten was on the frosty common under the fir-trees. ...

I MEET OLD FRIENDS Notwithstanding the prognostications it pleased us to indulge, we had a tolerably smooth voyage. On a clear cold Sunday morning we were sailing between a foreig...

WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST Bowls of hot coffee and milk, with white rolls of bread to dip in them, refreshed us at a forest inn. For some minutes aft...

THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY The little lady was soon bowing to respectful salutations from crowds of rustics and others on a broad carriage-way circling level with the height. I ...

MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each side of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage. I became a perf...

WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION In a long saloon ornamented with stags' horns and instruments of the chase, tusks of boars, spear-staves, boarknives, and...

OUR RETURN HOMEWARD We started for England at noon, much against my secret wishes; but my father would not afford the margravine time to repent of her violent language and injusti...

NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S Temple went to sea. The wonder is that I did not go with him: we were both in agreement that adventures were the only things worth living f...

A PROMENADE IN BATH I found my father at his hotel, sitting with his friend Jorian DeWitt, whom I had met once before, and thought clever. He was an ex-captain of dragoons, a mart...

CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE The friends of Miss Penrhys were ill advised in trying to cry down a man like my father. Active persecution was the breath of life to him. When untr...

MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY Books and dreams, like the two rivers cited by my father, flowed side by side in me without mixing; and which the bright Rhone was, which the brown Arve, ...

I MEET THE PRINCESS Hearing that I had not slept at the hotel, the Rev. Ambrose rushed down to Riversley with melancholy ejaculations, and was made to rebound by the squire's cont...

ON BOARD A YACHT With the heartiest consent I could give, and a blank cheque, my father returned to England to hire forthwith a commodious yacht, fitted and manned. Before going h...

IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE Our cruise came to an end in time to save the margravine from yawning. The last day of it was windless, and we hung in sight of the colour...

THE TIME OF ROSES I sat and thrilled from head to foot with a deeper emotion than joy. Not I, but a detached self allied to the careering universe and having life in it. 'Violets...

OTTILIA She was on horseback; I on foot, Schwartz for sole witness, and a wide space of rolling silent white country around us. We had met in the fall of the winter noon by accid...

AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG In my perplexity, I thought of the Professor's saying: 'A most fortunate or a most unfortunate young man.' These words began to strike me as...

A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE The foregoing conversations with Ottilia and her teacher, hard as they were for passion to digest, grew luminous on a relapsing heart. Without apprehendin...

PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER That hour of tempest went swift as one of its flashes over our little nest of peace, where we crouched like insects. The lightning and the deluge seemed ...

AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO A messenger from Prince Ernest commanding my immediate attendance at the palace signified that the battle had begun....

WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING The surgeon, who attended us both, loudly admired our mutual delicacy in sparing arteries and vital organs: but a bullet cuts a rougher pathway than the ne...

I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE I had a visit from Prince Ernest, nominally one of congratulation on my escape. I was never in my life so much at any man's mercy: he might h...

THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY I was humming the burden of Gothe's Zigeunerlied, a favourite one with me whenever I had too much to think of, or nothing. A low rush of sound...

HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN The room was in flames, Baroness Turckems plucking at the bell-rope, my father looking big and brilliant. 'Hold hand!' he shouted to the frenzied baroness...

JANET RENOUNCES ME An illness of old Sewis, the butler,--amazingly resembling a sick monkey in his bed,--kept me from paying a visit to Temple and seeing my father for several wee...

MY BANKERS' BOOK The squire again did honour to Janet's eulogy and good management of him. 'And where,' said she, 'would you find a Radical to behave so generously, Harry, when i...

I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF My father stood in the lobby of the Opera, holding a sort of open court, it appeared to me, for a cluster of gentlemen ...

MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER My father's pleasure on the day of our journey to Bulsted was to drive me out of London on a lofty open chariot, with which he made the cir...

COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S GRAND PARADE Janet, in reply to our inquiries as to the condition of the squire's temper, pointed out in the newspap...

THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET I passed from man to man, hearing hints and hesitations, alarming half-remarks, presumed to be addressed to one who could supply the remainder...

I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION An entire revulsion in my feelings and my way of thinking was caused by this sudden change of prospect. A member of our Parliament, I coul...

MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE My grandfather had a gratification in my success, mingled with a transparent jealousy of the chief agent in procuring it. He warned m...

WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE A single tent stood in a gully running from one of the gravel-pits of the heath, near an iron-red rillet, and a girl of Kiomi's tribe leaned over the laz...

AMONG GIPSY WOMEN I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the slight hold I had on th...

MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN Kiomi's mother was seen in a turn of the gravel-cutting, bearing purchases from Durstan village. She took the new circumstances in with a single c...

THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED 'Not princess in England,' could betoken but one thing--an incredible act of devotion, so great that it stunned my senses, and I thought of it, and of all i...

WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING At our Riversley station I observed the squire, in company with Captain Bulsted, jump into a neighbouring carriage. I joined them, and was ca...

WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET Journeying down by the mail-train in the face of a great sunken sunset broken with cloud, I chanced to ask myself what it was that I seriously desire...

'Dear old Richie,' he laughed, gently. 'And now to bye-bye! My blessing on you now and always.' He shut his eyes....

AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT The morning was sultry with the first rising of the sun. I knew that Ottilia and Janet would be out. For myself, I dared ...

STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST My father and I stood at different windows, observing the unconcerned people below. 'Did you scheme to bring Prince ...

THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING My grandfather lived eight months after a scene that had afforded him high gratification at the heaviest cost a pla...

MY RETURN TO ENGLAND I passed from the Alps to the desert, and fell in love with the East, until it began to consume me. History, like the air we breathe, must be in motion to kee...

I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT There came to me a little note on foreign paper, unaddressed, an enclosure forwarded by Janet, and containing merely one scrap fr...

CONCLUSION The wind was high that morning. The rain came in gray rings, through which we worked on the fretted surface of crumbling seas, heaving up and plunging, without an outlo...

I. THE CHAMPION OF HIS COUNTRY II. UNCLE, NEPHEW, AND ANOTHER III. CONTAINS BARONIAL VIEWS OF THE PRESENT IV. A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION V. RENEE V...

XI. CAPTAIN BASKELETT XII. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS Dr. SHRAPNEL XIII. A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE XIV. THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT XV. CE...

XIX. LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS XX. A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE XXI. THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE FINE BLOW STRUCK BY MR. EVERA...

XXVI. MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM XXVII. A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION XXVIII. TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY'S HEART AND HER INTELLECT XXIX. THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMAN...

XXXIV. THE FACE OF RENEE XXXV. THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION XXXVI. PURSUIT OF THE APOLOGY OF MR. ROMFREY TO DR. SHRAPNEL XXXVII. CECILIA CONQUERED XXXVIII. LORD AVO...

XLII. THE TWO PASSIONS XLIII. THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS XLIV. THE NEPHEWS OF THE EARL, AND ANOTHER EXHIBITION OF THE TWO PASSIONS IN BEAUCHAMP. XLV....

L. AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON LI. IN THE NIGHT LII. QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE LIII. THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL LIV. THE FRUITS OF...

THE CHAMPION OF HIS COUNTRY When young Nevil Beauchamp was throwing off his midshipman's jacket for a holiday in the garb of peace, we had across Channel a host of dreadful milita...

UNCLE, NEPHEW, AND ANOTHER The Honourable Everard Romfrey came of a race of fighting earls, toughest of men, whose high, stout, Western castle had weathered our cyclone periods of...

CONTAINS BARONIAL VIEWS OF THE PRESENT TIME Upon the word of honour of Rosamund, the letter to the officers of the French Guard was posted. 'Post it, post it,' Everard said, on h...

A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION The young gentleman to whom Everard Romfrey transferred his combative spirit despatched a letter from the Dardanelles, requesting his uncle not to ask...

RENEE At last, one morning, arrived a letter from a French gentleman signing himself Comte Cresnes de Croisnel, in which Everard was informed that his nephew had accompanied the s...

LOVE IN VENICE The air flashed like heaven descending for Nevil alone with Renee. They had never been alone before. Such happiness belonged to the avenue of wishes leading to gold...

AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH Renee was downcast. Had she not coquetted? The dear young Englishman had reduced her to defend herself, the which fair ladies, like besieged garrisons, canno...

A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC The lovers met after Roland had spoken to his sister--not exactly to advocate the cause of Nevil, though he was under the influence of that grave night's w...

MORNING AT SEA UNDER THE ALPS The breeze blew steadily, enough to swell the sails and sweep the vessel on smoothly. The night air dropped no moisture on deck. Nevil Beauchamp doz...

A SINGULAR COUNCIL The four sat together under the shadow of the helmsman, by whom they were regarded as voyagers in debate upon the question of some hours further on salt water. ...

CAPTAIN BASKELETT Our England, meanwhile, was bustling over the extinguished war, counting the cost of it, with a rather rueful eye on Manchester, and soothing the taxed by an exh...

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS DR. SHRAPNEL In the High street of the ancient and famous town and port of Bevisham, Rosamund met the military governor of a neighbouring fortress, ...

A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE However much Mr. Everard Romfrey may have laughed at Nevil Beauchamp with his 'banana-wreath,' he liked the fellow for having volunteered for that African c...

THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT Nevil declined to come to Steynham, clearly owing to a dread of hearing Dr. Shrapnel abused, as Rosamund judged by the warmth of his wri...

CECILIA HALKETT Beauchamp walked down to the pier, where he took a boat for H.M.S. Isis, to see Jack Wilmore, whom he had not met since his return from his last cruise, and first ...

A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS Beauchamp presented himself at Mount Laurels next day, and formally asked Colonel Halkett for his vote, in the presence of Cecilia. ...

HIS FRIEND AND FOE Looking from her window very early on a Sunday morning, Miss Halkett saw Beauchamp strolling across the grass of the park. She dressed hurriedly and went out to...

CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING Tories dread the restlessness of Radicals, and Radicals are in awe of the organization of Tories. Beauchamp thought anxiously of the high degree o...

LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS OF BEVISHAM Meantime the candidates raised knockers, rang bells, bowed, expounded their views, praised their virtues, begged for votes, and great...

A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE An election in Bevisham was always an exciting period at Itchincope, the large and influential old estate of the Lespels, which at one time, with but a ceremon...

THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE FINE BLOW STRUCK BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY Itchincope was famous for its hospitality. Yet Beauchamp, when in the presence of ...

THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM Beauchamp was requested by Cecilia to hold the reins. His fair companion in the pony-carriage preferred to lean back musing, and he had leisure to think ov...

TOURDESTELLE On the part of Beauchamp, his conversation with Cecilia during the drive into Bevisham opened out for the first time in his life a prospect of home; he had felt the w...

HIS HOLIDAY A single day was to be the term of his holiday at Tourdestelle; but it stood forth as one of those perfect days which are rounded by an evening before and a morning af...

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT Madame d'Auffray passed Renee, whispering on her way to take her seat at the breakfast-table. Renee did not condescend to whisper. 'Roland will be glad,...

MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM Some time after Beauchamp had been seen renewing his canvass in Bevisham a report reached Mount Laurels that he was lame of a leg. The wits of the opposite c...

A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION The brisk Election-day, unlike that wearisome but instructive canvass of the Englishman in his castle vicatim, teaches little; and its humours are...

TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY'S HEART AND HER INTELLECT Mr. Tuckham found his way to Dr. Shrapnel's cottage to see his kinsman on the day after the election. There was a dinner in honour ...

THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP Before we give ear to the recital of Dr. Shrapnel's letter to his pupil in politics by the mouth of Captain Baskelett, it is nec...

THE BAITING OF DR. SHRAPNEL Captain Baskelett went down from Mount Laurels to Bevisham to arrange for the giving of a dinner to certain of his chief supporters in the borough, tha...

SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION About noon the day following, on board the steam-yacht of the Countess of Menai, Cecil was very much astonished to see Mr. Romfrey des...

AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP'S FASHION The day after Mr. Romfrey's landing in Bevisham a full South-wester stretched the canvas of yachts of all classes, schooner, cu...

THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM The judge pronouncing sentence of condemnation on the criminal is proverbially a sorrowfully-minded man; and still more would he be so had he to un...

THE FACE OF RENEE Shortly before the ringing of the dinner-bell Rosamund knocked at Beauchamp's dressing-room door, the bearer of a telegram from Bevisham. He read it in one swift...

THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION That pure opaque of the line of downs ran luminously edged against the pearly morning sky, with its dark landward face crepusculine yet clear in ev...

PURSUIT OF THE APOLOGY OF Mr. ROMFREY TO DR. SHRAPNEL The contest, which was an alternation of hard hitting and close wrestling, had recommenced when Colonel Halkett stepped into ...

CECILIA CONQUERED The carriage rolled out of the avenue and through the park, for some time parallel with the wavy downs. Once away from Steynham Colonel Halkett breathed freely, ...

LORD AVONLEY Mr. Everard Romfrey was now, by consent, Lord Avonley, mounted on his direct heirship and riding hard at the earldom. His elevation occurred at a period of life that ...

BETWEEN BEAUCHAMP AND CECILIA Beauchamp quitted the house without answering as to what next, and without seeing Rosamund. In the matter of money, as of his physical health, he wa...

A TRIAL OF HIM A low-burning lamp and fire cast a narrow ring on the shadows of the dusky London room. One of the window-blinds was drawn up. Beauchamp discerned a shape at that w...

A LAME VICTORY The intruder was not a person that had power to divide them; yet she came between their hearts with a touch of steel. 'I am here in obedience to your commands in y...

THE TWO PASSIONS The foggy February night refreshed his head, and the business of fetching the luggage from the hotel--a commission that necessitated the delivery of his card and ...

THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS An extraordinary telegraphic message, followed by a still more extraordinary letter the next morning, from Rosamund Culling, all but interdict...

THE NEPHEWS OF THE EARL, AND ANOTHER EXHIBITION OF THE TWO PASSIONS IN BEAUCHAMP It was now the season when London is as a lighted tower to her provinces, and, among other gentlem...

A LITTLE PLOT AGAINST CECILIA Some days before Easter week Seymour Austin went to Mount Laurels for rest, at an express invitation from Colonel Halkett. The working barrister, who...

AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FORESEEN It was in Italy that Cecilia's maiden dreams of life had opened. She hoped to recover them in Italy, and the calm security of a mind untainted. Ital...

THE REFUSAL OF HIM Passing from one scene of excitement to another, Cecilia was perfectly steeled for her bitter task; and having done that which separated her a sphere's distance...

OF THE TRIAL AWAITING THE EARL OF ROMFREY Cecilia softly dropped her father's arm, and went into the house. The exceeding pallor of Beauchamp's face haunted her in her room. She h...

A FABRIC OF BARONIAL DESPOTISM CRUMBLE The earl's precautions did duty night and day in all the avenues leading to the castle and his wife's apartments; and he could believe that ...

AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON Rain went with Lord Romfrey in a pursuing cloud all the way to Bevisham, and across the common to the long garden and plain little green-shuttered, ne...

IN THE NIGHT The delirious voice haunted him. It came no longer accompanied by images and likenesses to this and that of animate nature, which were relieving and distracting; it c...

QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE Then came a glorious morning for sportsmen. One sniffed the dews, and could fancy fresh smells of stubble earth and dank woodland gr...

THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL 'You and Nevil are so alike,' Lady Romfrey said to her lord, at some secret resemblance she detected and dwelt on fondly, when the earl was on the poin...

THE FRUITS OF THE APOLOGY This clear heart had cause for tears. Her just indignation with Lord Romfrey had sustained her artificially hitherto now that it was erased, she sank dow...

WITHOUT LOVE At the end of November, Jenny Denham wrote these lines to Mr. Lydiard, in reply to his request that she should furnish the latest particulars of Nevil Beauchamp, for ...

THE LAST OF NEVIL BEAUCHAMP Not before Beauchamp was flying with the Winter gales to warmer climes could Rosamund reflect on his career unshadowed by her feminine mortification at...

book outstripping thousands of leagues when unrolled may be compassed in one comic sitting. For verily, say they, we must read what we can of it, at least the page before us, if w...

A MINOR INCIDENT SHOWING AN HEREDITARY APTITUDE IN THE USE OF THE KNIFE There was an ominously anxious watch of eyes visible and invisible over the infancy of Willoughby, fifth in...

THE YOUNG SIR WILLOUGHBY These little scoundrel imps, who have attained to some respectability as the dogs and pets of the Comic Spirit, had been curiously attentive three years e...

CONSTANTIA DURHAM The great question for the county was debated in many households, daughter-thronged and daughterless, long subsequent to the memorable day of Willoughby's coming...

LAETITIA DALE That was another surprise to the county. Let us not inquire into the feelings of patiently starving women; they must obtain some sustenance of their own, since, as ...

CLARA MIDDLETON The great meeting of Sir Willoughby Patterne and Miss Middleton had taken place at Cherriton Grange, the seat of a county grandee, where this young lady of eightee...

HIS COURTSHIP The world was the principal topic of dissension between these lovers. His opinion of the world affected her like a creature threatened with a deprivation of air. He ...

THE BETROTHED During the drive from Upton to Patterne, Miss Middleton hoped, she partly believed, that there was to be a change in Sir Willoughby's manner of courtship. He had bee...

A RUN WITH THE TRUANT; A WALK WITH THE MASTER The sight of Miss Middleton running inflamed young Crossjay with the passion of the game of hare and hounds. He shouted a view-halloo...

CLARA AND LAETITIA MEET: THEY ARE COMPARED An hour before the time for lessons next morning young Crossjay was on the lawn with a big bunch of wild flowers. He left them at the ha...

IN WHICH SIR WILLOUGHBY CHANCES TO SUPPLY THE TITLE FOR HIMSELF Now Vernon was useful to his cousin; he was the accomplished secretary of a man who governed his estate shrewdly an...

THE DOUBLE-BLOSSOM WILD CHERRY-TREE Sir Willoughby chose a moment when Clara was with him and he had a good retreat through folding-windows to the lawn, in case of cogency on the ...

MISS MIDDLETON AND MR. VERNON WHITFORD Looking upward, not quite awakened out of a transient doze, at a fair head circled in dazzling blossom, one may temporize awhile with common...

THE FIRST EFFORT AFTER FREEDOM Crossjay's accident was only another proof, as Vernon told Miss Dale, that the boy was but half monkey. "Something fresh?" she exclaimed on seeing ...

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND LAETITIA "I prepare Miss Dale." Sir Willoughby thought of his promise to Clara. He trifled awhile with young Crossjay, and then sent the boy flying, and wrappe...

THE PETITION FOR A RELEASE Neither Clara nor Vernon appeared at the mid-day table. Dr. Middleton talked with Miss Dale on classical matters, like a good-natured giant giving a chi...

CLARA AND LAETITIA In spite of his honourable caution, Vernon had said things to render Miss Middleton more angrily determined than she had been in the scene with Sir Willoughby. ...

THE PORCELAIN VASE During the term of Clara's walk with Laetitia, Sir Willoughby's shrunken self-esteem, like a garment hung to the fire after exposure to tempestuous weather, rec...

COLONEL DE CRAYE Clara came along chatting and laughing with Colonel De Craye, young Crossjay's hand under one of her arms, and her parasol flashing; a dazzling offender; as if sh...

COLONEL DE CRAYE AND CLARA MIDDLETON MISS MIDDLETON finished her stroll with Crossjay by winding her trailer of ivy in a wreath round his hat and sticking her bunch of grasses in ...

AN AGED AND A GREAT WINE THE leisurely promenade up and down the lawn with ladies and deferential gentlemen, in anticipation of the dinner-bell, was Dr. Middleton's evening pleasu...

our consciences are in some sort pledged that it shall be a succession not too considerably diminished." "You will not object to drink it, sir, to the health of your grandchildren...

CLARA'S MEDITATIONS Two were sleepless that night: Miss Middleton and Colonel De Craye. She was in a fever, lying like stone, with her brain burning. Quick natures run out to cal...

THE RIDE Crossjay darted up to her a nose ahead of the colonel. "I say, Miss Middleton, we're to have the whole day to ourselves, after morning lessons. Will you come and fish wi...

TREATS OF THE UNION OF TEMPER AND POLICY Sir Willoughby meanwhile was on a line of conduct suiting his appreciation of his duty to himself. He had deluded himself with the simple ...

CONTAINS AN INSTANCE OF THE GENEROSITY OF WILLOUGHBY Observers of a gathering complication and a character in action commonly resemble gleaners who are intent only on picking up t...

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER The morning of Lucy Darleton's letter of reply to her friend Clara was fair before sunrise, with luminous colours that are an omen to the husbandman. Cl...

VERNON IN PURSUIT The lodge-keeper had a son, who was a chum of Master Crossjay's, and errant-fellow with him upon many adventures; for this boy's passion was to become a gamekeep...

AT THE RAILWAY STATION Clara stood in the waiting-room contemplating the white rails of the rain-swept line. Her lips parted at the sight of Vernon. "You have your ticket?" said ...

THE RETURN Posted in observation at a corner of the window Clara saw Vernon cross the road to Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson's carriage, transformed to the leanest pattern of himself ...

IN WHICH THE SENSITIVENESS OF SIR WILLOUGHBY IS EXPLAINED: AND HE RECEIVES MUCH INSTRUCTION THE Hall-dock over the stables was then striking twelve. It was the hour for her flight...

TREATING OF THE DINNER-PARTY AT MRS. MOUNTSTUART JENKINSON'S Vernon and young Crossjay had tolerably steady work together for a couple of hours, varied by the arrival of a plate o...

SIR WILLOUGHBY ATTEMPTS AND ACHIEVES PATHOS Both were seated. Apparently he would have preferred to watch her dark downcast eyelashes in silence under sanction of his air of abstr...

LAETITIA DALE DISCOVERS A SPIRITUAL CHANGE AND DR MIDDLETON A PHYSICAL Clara tripped over the lawn in the early morning to Laetitia to greet her. She broke away from a colloquy wi...

IN WHICH THE COMIC MUSE HAS AN EYE ON TWO GOOD SOULS Clara met Vernon on the bowling-green among the laurels. She asked him where her father was. "Don't speak to him now," said V...

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND SIR WILLOUGHBY "Good morning, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart," Sir Willoughby wakened himself to address the great lady. "Why has she fled?" "Has any one fled?" "...

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART "Sit beside me, fair Middleton," said the great lady. "Gladly," said Clara, bowing to her title. "I want to sound you, my dear." Clara prese...

ANIMATED CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE Vernon was crossing the hall to the dining-room as Mrs Mountstuart stepped in. She called to him: "Are the champions reconciled?" He rep...

CONTAINS CLEVER FENCING AND INTIMATIONS OF THE NEED FOR IT That woman, Lady Busshe, had predicted, after the event, Constantia Durham's defection. She had also, subsequent to Will...

IN WHICH WE TAKE A STEP TO THE CENTRE OF EGOISM They met; Vernon soon left them. "You have not seen Crossjay?" Willoughby inquired. "No," said Clara. "Once more I beg you to par...

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST But already he had begun to regard the deed as his executioner. He dreaded meeting Clara. The folly of having retained her stood before him. How now to ...

MIDNIGHT: SIR WILLOUGHBY AND LAETITIA: WITH YOUNG CROSSJAY UNDER A COVERLET Young Crossjay was a glutton at holidays and never thought of home till it was dark. The close of the d...

THE REV. DR. MIDDLETON, CLARA, AND SIR WILLOUGHBY When Master Crossjay tumbled down the stairs, Laetitia was in Clara's room, speculating on the various mishaps which might have b...

SHOWS THE DIVINING ARTS OF A PERCEPTIVE MIND Starting from the Hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir Willoughby had entered the drawing-room overnight, Vernon parted com...

IN WHICH SIR WILLOUGHBY IS LED TO THINK THAT THE ELEMENTS HAVE CONSPIRED AGAINST HIM Clara had not taken many steps in the garden before she learned how great was her debt of grat...

DR MIDDLETON: THE LADIES ELEANOR AND ISABEL: AND MR. DALE Clara looked up at the flying clouds. She travelled with them now, and tasted freedom, but she prudently forbore to vex h...

THE PATTERNE LADIES: MR. DALE: LADY BUSSHE AND LADY CULMER: WITH MRS. MOUNTSTUART JENKINSON Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer entered spying to right and left. At the sight of Mr. Dale ...

THE SCENE OF SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP History, we may fear, will never know the qualities of leadership inherent in Sir Willoughby Patterne to fit him for the post of Commande...

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND HORACE DE CRAYE Willoughby shut himself up in his laboratory to brood awhile after the conflict. Sounding through himself, as it was habitual with hi...

THE LOVERS The hour was close upon eleven at night. Laetitia sat in the room adjoining her father's bedchamber. Her elbow was on the table beside her chair, and two fingers presse...

LAETITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY We cannot be abettors of the tribes of imps whose revelry is in the frailties of our poor human constitution. They have their place and their service, ...

UPON WHICH THE CURTAIN FALLS "Plain sense upon the marriage question is my demand upon man and woman, for the stopping of many a tragedy." These were Dr. Middleton's words in rep...

The word 'fantastical' is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem an appointed instrument for reviewers of b...

An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her web is for the devouring lion. At an ear...

'Who is the man they call Alvan?' She put the question at the first opportunity to an aunt of hers. Up went five-fingered hands. This violent natural sign of horror was comforting...

with thinkers and literary artists. Their saying in common, 'Plutarch's Pompeius,' may be traceable to a reading of some professorial article on the common portrait-painting of the...

Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted damsel must pretend to think sufficien...

'Hamlet in due season,' said he, as they sat together. 'I shall convince you.' She shook her head. 'Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: the fact is...

Clotilde was of the order of the erring who should by rights have a short sermon to preface an exposure of them, administering the whip to her own sex and to ours, lest we scorn to...

Alvan was at his writing-table doing stout gladiator's work on paper in a chamber of one of the gaunt hotels of the heights, which are Death's Heads there in Winter and have the to...

He was down on the plains to her the second day, and as usual when they met, it was as if they had not parted; his animation made it seem so. He was like summer's morning sunlight,...

Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her. All the rest to come was mere business matter of the co...

After his deed of loftiness Alvan walked to his hotel, where the sight of the room Clotilde had entered that morning caught his breath. He proceeded to write his first letter to Ge...

His friend Colonel von Tresten was beside him when he received the enemy's counter-stroke. Count Walburg and his companion brought a letter from Clotilde--no reply; a letter renoun...

The story of Clotilde's departure from the city, like that of Alvan's, communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, disseminated by her parents. She was remov...

She ran out to the shade of the garden walls to be by herself and in the air, and she read; and instantly her own letter to the baroness crashed sentence upon sentence, in retort, ...

His love meantime was the mission and the burden of Alvan, and he was not ashamed to speak of it and plead for it; and the pleading was not done troubadourishly, in soft flute-note...

He slept. Near upon morning he roused with his tender fit strong on him, but speechless in the waking as it had been dreamless in sleep. It was a happy load on his breast, a life a...

Then he found himself saying: 'At the age I touch!' . . . At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly. If the love is plucked from them, the life goes with it. He backed on ...

The baroness expected to see Alvan in the morning, for he kept appointments, and he had said he would come. She conceived that she was independent of personal wishes on the subject...

In the house of the Rudigers there was commotion. Clotilde sat apart from it, locked in her chamber. She had performed her crowning act of obedience to her father by declining the ...

Alvan was dead. The shot of his adversary, accidentally well-directed, had struck him mortally. He died on the morning of the third day after the duel. There had been no hope that ...

I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE II. AN IRISH BALL III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH IV. CON...

IX. SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN WAS MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER. X. THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT XI. RECOUN...

XVIII. THE AUTHORESS XIX. A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT XX. DIANA'S NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH XXI. THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE XXII. ...

XXXVI. IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRA...

OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her b...

AN IRISH BALL In the Assembly Rooms of the capital city of the Sister Island there was a public Ball, to celebrate the return to Erin of a British hero of Irish blood, after his v...

THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH, AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH 'It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will escape the crush for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana...

CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes had crossed the Channel back to England, a...

CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley, with a shade deeper of the calculating look under his thick b...

THE COUPLE Six months a married woman, Diana came to Copsley to introduce her husband. They had run over Italy: 'the Italian Peninsula,' she quoted him in a letter to Lady Dunstan...

THE CRISIS It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana beside him, cockaded lackeys in plain livery and the l...

IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER 'You see, you are my crutch,' Lady Dunstane said to him,--raising the stick in reminder...

SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN WAS MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER Redworth's impulse was to laugh for very gladness of heart, as he proffe...

THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT Her brain was a steam-wheel throughout the night; everything that could be thought of was tossed, nothing grasped. The unfriendliness of the friends who...

she stayed in England. By staying to defend herself she forfeited her attitude of dignity and lost all chance of her reward. And name the sort of world it is, dear friends, for wh...

RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL INCIDENT ON THE ROAD In the morning the fight was over. She looked at the signpost of The Crosswa...

BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA Diana was in the arms of her friend at a late hour of the evening, and Danvers breathed the amiable atmosphere of footmen once more, professing herself peri...

TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION The result of her sleeping was, that Diana's humour, locked up overnight, insisted on an excursion, as she lay with half-buried head and o...

GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD AND OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP As the day of her trial became more closely calculable, Diana's anticipated alarms rece...

INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER The Gods of this world's contests, against whom our poor stripped individual is commonly in revolt, are, as we know, not miners, they are reapers;...

TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL, AND OF A SCENE OF EARLY MORNING On a round of the mountains rising from Osteno, South eastward of Lugano, the Esquart party rose from the natural grotto...

'THE PRINCESS EGERIA' London, say what we will of it, is after all the head of the British giant, and if not the liveliest in bubbles, it is past competition the largest broth-pot...

of all Civilization.--Orders for copies of THE PRINCESS EGERIA reached the astonished publishers before the book was advertized. Speaking to editors, Redworth complimented them wi...

won't apply to her husband, and literature should help her, if she 's fairly treated. She 's Irish by descent; Merion's daughter, witty as her father. It's odd you haven't met her....

THE AUTHORESS The effect of a great success upon Diana, at her second literary venture, was shown in the transparent sedateness of a letter she wrote to Emma Dunstane, as much as ...

A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT The fatal time to come for her was in the Summer of that year. Emma had written her a letter of unwonted bright spirits, contrasting ...

DIANA A NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH He stepped into the room, and thrilled to hear the quiet voice beside the bed: 'Who is it?' Apologies and excuses were on his tongue. ...

'THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE' Descriptions in the newspapers of the rural funeral of Lord Dannisburgh had the effect of rousing flights of tattlers with a twittering of the disuse...

BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER: THE WIND EAST OVER BLEAK LAND On the third day of the Easter recess Percy Dacier landed from the Havre steamer at Caen and drove straightway for the sand...

RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S GOOD WOMEN Pure disengagement of contemplativeness had selected. Percy Dacier as the model of her YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE, Diana s...

INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION The month was August, four days before the closing of Parliament, and Diana fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes to run down with her to Cop...

ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS The suspicion of his having come to impart the news of his proximate marriage ultimately endowed her with sovereign calmness. She ...

IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTITUDE OF LESSONS Dacier welted at the station, a good figure of a sentinel over his luggage and a spy for one among the inpouring pass...

CONTAINS MATTER FOR SUBSEQUENT EXPLOSION Among the various letters inundating Sir Lukin Dunstane upon the report of the triumph of surgical skill achieved by Sir William Macpherso...

DIALOGUE ROUND THE SUBJECT OF A PORTRAIT, WITH SOME INDICATIONS OF THE TASK FOR DIANA An enamoured Egeria who is not a princess in her worldly state nor a goddess by origin has to...

SHOWS THE APPROACHES OF THE POLITICAL AND THE DOMESTIC CRISIS IN COMPANY There was not much talk of Diana between Lady Dunstane and her customary visitor Tom Redworth now. She was...

IN WHICH THERE IS A TASTE OF A LITTLE DINNER AND AN AFTERTASTE 'But Tony lives!' Emma Dunstane cried, on her solitary height, with the full accent of envy marking the verb; and wh...

A CHAPTER CONTAINING GREAT POLITICAL NEWS AND THEREWITH AN INTRUSION OF THE LOVE-GOD Dacier was pacing about the drawing-room, as in a place too narrow for him. Diana stood at th...

WHEREIN WE BEHOLD A GIDDY TURN AT THE SPECTRAL CROSSWAYS Danvers accompanied Mr. Dacier to the house-door. Climbing the stairs, she found her mistress in the drawing-room still. ...

EXHIBITS THE SPRINGING OF A MINE IN A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE The powers of harmony would seem to be tried to their shrewdest pitch when Politics and Love are planted together in a huma...

IN WHICH IT IS DARKLY SEEN HOW THE CRIMINAL'S JUDGE MAY BE LOVE'S CRIMINAL When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not think much of the thing we have clutched for support...

REVEALS HOW THE TRUE HEROINE OF ROMANCE COMES FINALLY TO HER, TIME OF TRIUMPH The shutting of her house-door closed for Dacier that woman's history in connection with himself. He ...

IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS Hymenaeal rumours are those which might be backed to run a victorious race with the tale of evil fortune; and clearly fo...

AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY Close upon the hour of ten every morning the fortuitous meeting of two gentlemen at Mrs. Warwick's housedoor was a signal for ...

CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT From an abandonment that had the last pleasure of life in a willingness to yield it up, Diana rose with her friend's help in some state ...

OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A SHORT EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX A mind that after a long season of oblivion in pain returns to wakefulness without a keen edge ...

IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND A THRICE WHIMSICAL On their way from London, after leaving the station, the drive through the valley led them past a fie...

CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA An afternoon of high summer blazed over London through the City's awning of smoke, and the three classes of the populat...

THE PENULTIMATE: SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND RUN INTO HARNESS The prophet of the storm had forgotten his prediction; which, however, was of small concern to him, apar...

NUPTIAL CHAPTER; AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS LED TO BLOOM WITH THE NUPTIAL SENTIMENT Emma watched them on their way through the park, till they rounded the beechwood, ta...

I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE III. OLD VEUVE IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD VI. NAT...

XII. TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD HAVING ONE HEART XIII. THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN XIV. DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PAR...

XIX. TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN THEM AND OF A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS COUNTRY XX. THE GREAT AS...

XXV. NATALY IN ACTION XXVI. IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLE MAN ENDEAVOURING TO EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF XXVII. CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A ...

XXXVI. NESTA AND HER FATHER XXXVII. THE MOTHER--THE DAUGHTER XXXVIII. NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN XXXIX. A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT XL. AN EXPIA...

ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost magically detach...

THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE The fair dealing with readers demands of us, that a narrative shall not proceed at slower pace than legs of a man in motion; and we are ...

OLD VEUVE They were known at the house of the turtle and the attractive Old Veuve: a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age, counting up to the extremer ma...

THE SECOND BOTTLE This little dart of a man came to a stop at a respectful distance from his master, having the look of an arrested needle in mechanism. His lean slip of face was ...

THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD In that nationally interesting Poem, or Dramatic Satire, once famous, THE RAJAH IN LONDON (London, Limbo and Sons, 1889), now obliterated under the long w...

NATALY 'Il segreto!' the girl cried commandingly, with a forefinger at his breast. He crossed arms, toning in similar recitative, with anguish, 'Dove volare!' They joined in hal...

BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THIN WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL Rather earlier in the afternoon of that day, Simeon Fenellan, thinking of the many things which are nothing, and so melancho...

SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS Nesta read her mother's face when Mrs. Victor entered the drawing-room to receive the guests. She saw a smooth fair surface, of the kind as much required by h...

AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS One may not have an intention to flourish, and may be pardoned for a semblance of it, in exclaiming, somewhat royally, as creator and owner of the place...

SKEPSEY IN MOTION The bearer of his master's midday letters from London shot beyond Nataly as soon as seen, with an apparent snap of his body in passing. He steamed to the end of ...

WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT OF THEIR SCOURGE Fenellan, in a musing exclamation, that was quite spontaneous, had put a picture on the departing Skep...

TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD HAVING ONE HEART Two that live together in union are supposed to be intimate on every leaf. Particularly when they love...

THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN After cursory remarks about the business of the Office and his friend's contributions to periodical literature, in which he was interested for as long as...

DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PARIS A fortnight later, an extremely disconcerting circumstance occurred: Armandine was ten minutes behind the hour with her dinner. But the sur...

A PATRIOT ABROAD Nine days after his master's departure, Daniel Skepsey, a man of some renown of late, as a subject of reports and comments in the newspapers, obtained a passport,...

ACCOUNTS FOR SKEPSEY'S MISCONDUCT, SHOWING HOW IT AFFECTED NATALY His master opened on the bristling business. 'What's this, of your name in the papers, your appearing before a m...

CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID'S IMAGININGS That Mausoleum at Dreux may touch to lift us. History, pleads for the pride of the great discrowned Family giving her illuminat...

SUITORS FOR THE HAND OF NESTA VICTORIA When, upon the well-known quest, the delightful singer Orpheus took that downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutel...

TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN THEM AND OF A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS COUNTRY There is at times in the hearts of all men of activ...

THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELANDS Round the neighbourhood of Lakelands it was known that the day of the great gathering there had been authoritatively foretold as fine, by Mr. Victo...

DARTREY FENELLAN Had Nataly and Nesta known who was outside helping Skepsey to play ball with the boys, they would not have worked through their share of the performance with so g...

CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN Armandine did her wonders. There is not in the wide range of the Muses a more responsive instrument than man to his marvellous cook; and if his ...

TREATS OF THE LADIES' LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF MOMENTOUS EFFECTS PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES The maiden ladies Dorothea and Virginia Duvidney were thin--sweet old-fashion...

NESTA'S ENGAGEMENT A word in his ear from Fenellan, touching that man Blathenoy, set the wheels of Victor's brain at work upon his defences, for a minute, on the walk Westward. Wh...

NATALY IN ACTION A ticket of herald newspapers told the world of Victor's returning to his London. Pretty Mrs. Blathenoy was Nataly's first afternoon visitor, and was graciously r...

IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLEMAN ENDEAVOURING TO EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF Dudley rode back to Cronidge with his thunderstroke. It filled him, as in those halls of poli...

CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A GREAT, AS THE SOUL OF THE CHIEF ACTOR MAY DECIDE Skepsey ushered Lady Grace into his master's private room, and entertained her during his mast...

MRS. MARSETT Little acts of kindness were not beyond the range of Colney Durance, and he ran down to Brighton, to give the exiled Nesta some taste of her friendly London circle. T...

SHOWS ONE OF THE SHADOWS OF THE WORLD CROSSING A VIRGIN'S MIND Nasta and her maid were brought back safely through the dusk by their constellation of a boy, to whom the provident ...

THE BURDEN UPON NESTA Could there be confidences on the subject of Mrs. Marsett with Captain Dartrey?--Nesta timidly questioned her heart: she knocked at an iron door shut upon a ...

SHOWS HOW THE SQUIRES IN A CONQUEROR'S SERVICE HAVE AT TIMES TO DO KNIGHTLY CONQUEST OF THEMSELVES By the very earliest of the trains shot away to light and briny air from London'...

SHOWS HOW TEMPER MAY KINDLE TEMPER AND AN INDIGNANT WOMAN GET HER WEAPON Judith Marsett stood in her room to receive Nesta's hero. She was flushed, and had thinned her lips for ut...

A PAIR OF WOOERS That ashen look of the rise out of death from one of our mortal wounds, was caused by deeper convulsions in Nesta's bosom than Dartrey could imagine. She had gon...

CONTAINS DEEDS UNRELATED AND EXPOSITIONS OF FEELINGS All through the afternoon and evening Skepsey showed indifference to meals by continuing absent: and he was the one with whom ...

IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING AN ABYSMAL DARKNESS And if Nesta had looked out of her carriage-window soon after the train began to glide, her eagle of i...

NESTA AND HER FATHER The day of Nesta's return was one of a number of late when Victor was robbed of his walk Westward by Lady Grace Halley, who seduced his politeness with her va...

THE MOTHER-THE DAUGHTER Taking Nesta's hand, on her entry into his chambers with her father, Colney Durance bowed over it and kissed it. The unusual performance had a meaning; she...

NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN Pleasant things, that come to us too late for our savour of the sweetness in them, toll ominously of life on the last walk to its end. Yesterda...

A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT He read her more closely when Arlington brought in the brown paper envelope of the wires--to which the mate of Victor ought to have become ...

AN EXPIATION Nataly had fallen to be one of the solitary who have no companionship save with the wound they nurse, to chafe it rather than try at healing. So rational a mind as sh...

THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT UNDELIVERED SPEECH To a man issuing from a mortuary where a skull had voice, London may be restorative as air of Summer Alps. It is by contrast blooming lif...

THE LAST In the still dark hour of that April morning, the Rev. Septimus Barmby was roused by Mr. Peridon, with a scribbled message from Victor, which he deciphered by candlelight...

I. LOVE AT A SCHOOL II. LADY CHARLOTTE III. THE TUTOR IV. RECOGNITION V. IN WHICH THE SHADES OF BROWNY AND MATEY ADVANCE AND RETIRE...

VI. IN A MOOD OF LANGUOR VII. EXHIBITS EFFECTS OF A PRATTLER'S DOSES VIII. MRS. LAWRENCE FINCHLEY IX. A FLASH OF THE BRUISED WARRIOR X. A SHORT PASSAGE ...

XII. MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS XIII. WAR AT OLMER XIV. OLD LOVERS NEW FRIENDS XV. SHOWING A SECRET FISHED WITHOUT ANGLING XVI. ALONG TWO ROADS TO STEIGNTON...

XVII. LADY CHARLOTTE'S TRIUMPH XVIII. A SCENE ON THE ROAD BACK XIX. THE PURSUERS XX. AT THE SIGN OF THE JOLLY CRICKETERS XXI. UNDER-CURRENTS IN THE MINDS OF ...

XXIV. LOVERS MATED XXXV. PREPARATIONS FOR A RESOLVE XXVI. VISITS OF FAREWELL XXVII. A MARINE DUET XXVIII. THE PLIGHTING XXIX. AMINTA TO HER LORD XXX. CONC...

LOVE AT A SCHOOL A procession of schoolboys having to meet a procession of schoolgirls on the Sunday's dead march, called a walk, round the park, could hardly go by without droppi...

LADY CHARLOTTE Love-passages at a school must produce a ringing crisis if they are to leave the rosy impression which spans the gap of holidays. Neither Matey nor Browny returned ...

THE TUTOR There was no counting now on Lord Ormont's presence in the British gathering seasons, when wheatears wing across our fields or swallows return to their eaves. He forsook...

RECOGNITION Our applicant for the post of secretary entered the street of Lord Ormont's London house, to present himself to his boyhood's hero by appointment. He was to see, perh...

IN WHICH THE SHADES OF BROWNY AND MATEY ADVANCE AND RETIRE "Emile is as anglomane as ever, and not a bit less a Frenchman," Weyburn said, in a tone of one who muffles a shock at t...

IN A MOOD OF LANGUOR Up in Aminta's amber dressing-room; Mrs. Nargett Pagnell alluded sadly to the long month of separation, and begged her niece to let her have in plain words an...

EXHIBITS EFFECTS OF A PRATTLER'S DOSES The rules in Lord Ormont's household assisted to shelter him for some hours of the day from the lady who was like a blast of sirocco under h...

MRS. LAWRENCE FINCHLEY My lord had one of his wilful likings for Isabella Lawrence Finchley, and he consented to the torture of an hour of Mrs. Nargett Pagnell in the middle of th...

A FLASH OF THE BRUISED WARRIOR The winning of Lord Ormont's consent to look on at the little bout of arms was counted an achievement; for even in his own rarefied upper circle, wh...

A SHORT PASSAGE IN THE GAME PLAYED BY TWO Politest of men in the domestic circle and everywhere among women, Lord Ormont was annoyed to find himself often gruffish behind the tie ...

THE SECRETARY TAKEN AS AN ANTIDOTE Dusty wayfarers along a white high-road who know of a bubbling little spring across a stile, on the woodland borders of deep grass, are hailed t...

MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS Entering the dining-room at the appointed minute in a punctual household, Mrs. Lawrence informed the company that she had seen a Horse Guards orderly at the t...

WAR AT OLMER Lively doings were on the leap to animate Weyburn at Olmer during Easter week. The Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey, rector of Barborough, on hearing that Lady Charlotte Eglett ...

OLD LOVERS NEW FRIENDS The cottage inhabited by Weyburn's mother was on the southern hills over London. He reached it late in the afternoon. His mother's old servant, Martha, spie...

SHOWING A SECRET FISHED WITHOUT ANGLING That great couchant dragon of the devouring jaws and the withering breath, known as our London world, was in expectation of an excitement a...

ALONG TWO ROADS TO STEIGNTON Unaccountable resolutions, if impromptu and springing from the female breast, are popularly taken for caprices; and even when they divert the current ...

LADY CHARLOTTE'S TRIUMPH One of the days of sovereign splendour in England was riding down the heavens, and drawing the royal mantle of the gold-fringed shadows over plain and wav...

A SCENE ON THE ROAD BACK After refusing to quit the grounds of Steignton, in spite of the proprietor, Mrs. Pagnell burst into an agitation to have them be at speed, that they migh...

THE PURSUERS For promptitude, the lady, the gentleman, and the coachman were in such unison as to make it a reasonable deduction that the flight had been concerted. Never did any...

AT THE SIGN OF THE JOLLY CRICKETERS The passing by of the pair of horsemen, who so little suspected the treasure existing behind the small inn's narrow window did homage in Aminta...

UNDER-CURRENTS IN THE MINDS OF LADY CHARLOTTE AND LORD ORMONT Another journey of travellers to London, in the rear of the chariot, was not diversified by a single incident or refr...

TREATS OF THE FIRST DAY OF THE CONTENTION OF BROTHER AND SISTER In the contest rageing at mid-sea still between the man and the woman, it is the one who is hard to the attractions...

THE ORMONT JEWELS At half-past twelve of the noon next day Lord Ormont was at Lady Charlotte's house door. She welcomed him affectionately, as if nothing were in dispute; he nodde...

LOVERS MATED He was benevolently martial, to the extent of paternal, in thinking his girl, of whom he deigned to think now as his countess, pardonably foolish. Woman for woman, sh...

PREPARATIONS FOR A RESOLVE That day receded like a spent billow, and lapsed among the others advancing, but it left a print deeper than events would have stamped. Aminta's pen dec...

VISITS OF FAREWELL The noise in London over Adolphus Morsfield's tragical end disturbed Lord Ormont much less than the cessation of letters from his Aminta; and that likewise, con...

A MARINE DUET She soon had to know she was chased. She had seen the dive from the boat, and received all illumination. With a chuckle of delighted surprise, like a blackbird start...

THE PLIGHTING They touched sand at the first draw of the ebb, and this being earth, Matey addressed himself to the guardian and absolving genii of matter-of-fact, by saying; 'Did ...

AMINTA TO HER LORD On Friday, on Saturday, on Sunday, Lady Charlotte waited for her brother Rowsley, until it was a diminished satisfaction that she had held her ground and baffle...

CONCLUSION The peaceful little home on the solitary sandy shore was assailed, unwarned, beneath a quiet sky, some hours later, by a whirlwind, a dust-storm, and rattling volleys. ...

I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS II. MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE ...

X. SMALL CAUSES XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD XII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT XIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVEN...

XX. STUDIES IN FOG, GOUT, AN OLD SEAMAN, A LOVELY SERPENT, AND THE MORAL EFFECTS THAT MAY COME OF A BORROWED SHIRT XXI. IN WHICH WE HAVE FURTHER GLIMPSES OF TH...

XXIX. CARINTHIA IN WALES XXX. REBECCA WYTHAN XXXI. WE HAVE AGAIN TO DEAL WITH THE EXAMPLES OF OUR YOUNGER MAN XXXII. IN WHICH WE SEE CARINTHIA PUT IN PRACTICE ONE O...

XXXIX. THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR XL. A RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS XLI. IN WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE REFUGES FROM THEM XLII. ...

ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS Everybody has heard of the beautiful Countess of Cressett, who was one of the lights of this country at the time when crowned heads were running over E...

MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY The twe...

CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION I have still time before me, according to the terms of my agreement with the perso...

MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME Brother and sister were about to leave the mountainland for England. They had not gone to bed overnight, and from the windows of their deserted...

A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE Chillon was right in his forecast of the mists. An over-moistened earth steaming to the sun obscured it before the two had finished breakfast,...

THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER Three parts down a swift decline of shattered slate, where travelling stones loosened from rows of scree hurl away at a bound after one roll over, there sa...

THE LADY'S LETTER Is not the lover a prophet? He that fervently desires may well be one; his hurried nature is alive with warmth to break the possible blow: and if his fears were ...

OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: IN WHICH THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOUL...

CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES In those early days of Fortune's pregnant alternations of colour...

SMALL CAUSES A clock sounded one of the later morning hours of the night as Gower Woodseer stood at his hotel door, having left Fleetwood with a band of revellers. The night was n...

THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD Nothing to rouse alarm was discovered at Carlsruhe. Livia's fair cousin was there with the red-haired gaunt girl of the mountains; and it was frankly stat...

HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT By the first light of an autumn morning, Henrietta sat at her travelling-desk, to shoot a spark into the breast of her lover with th...

AN IRRUPTION. OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION 'It is a dark land,' Carinthia said, on seeing our Island's lowered clouds in swift motion, without a break of their f...

A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING Mention has been omitted or forgotten by the worthy Dame, in her vagrant fowl's treatment of a story she cannot incubate, will not relinquish, and may u...

OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON A famous maxim in the book of the Old Buccaneer, treating of PRECAUTION, as 'The brave man's clean conscience,' with sound counsel to the adventurou...

IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLAND Cheers at an open gate of a field saluted the familiar scarlet of the Earl of Fleetwood's coach in Kentish la...

RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING Kit Ines cocked an eye at Madge, in the midst of the congratulations and the paeans pumping his arms. As he had been little mauled,...

DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY Contention begets contention in a land of the pirate races. Gigs were at high rival speed along the road from the battle-field to London. They were the electr...

THE GIRL MADGE Customers were at the counter of the shop, and these rational figures, together with the piles of cabbages, the sacks of potatoes, the pale small oranges here and t...

STUDIES IN FOG, GOUT, AN OLD SEAMAN, A LOVELY SERPENT, AND THE MORAL EFFECTS THAT MAY COME OF A BORROWED SHIRT Money of his father's enabled Gower to take the coach; and studies i...

IN WHICH WE HAVE FURTHER GLIMPSES OF THE WONDROUS MECHANISM OF OUR YOUNGER MAN The report of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham as having died in the arms of a stranger visiting the house, ...

A RIGHT-MINDED GREAT LADY The bow, the welcome, and the introductory remarks passed rapidly as the pull at two sides of a curtain opening on a scene that stiffens courtliness to h...

IN DAME GOSSIP'S VEIN Right soon the London pot began to bubble. There was a marriage. 'There are marriages by the thousand every day of the year that is not consecrated to praye...

A KIDNAPPING AND NO GREAT HARM Ladies who have the pride of delicate breeding are not more than rather violently hurled back on the fortress it is, when one or other of the gross ...

THE PHILOSOPHER MAN OF ACTION Gower's bedroom window looked over the shrubs of the square, and as his form of revolt from a city life was to be up and out with the sparrows in the...

AFTER SOME FENCING THE DAME PASSES OUR GUARD Dame Gossip at this present pass bursts to give us a review of the social world siding for the earl or for his countess; and her parro...

WE DESCEND INTO A STEAMER'S ENGINE-ROOM Fleetwood had dropped his friend Lord Feltre at Ancona; his good fortune was to be alone when the clang of bells rang through his head in t...

BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS AVERTED Livia welcomed him, with commiserating inquiry behind her languid eyelids. 'You have all the latest?' it said. He...

CARINTHIA IN WALES An August of gales and rains drove Atlantic air over the Welsh highlands. Carinthia's old father had impressed on her the rapture of 'smelling salt' when by cha...

REBECCA WYTHAN The earl was looked for at the, chief office of the mines, and each day an expectation of him closed in disappointment, leaving it to be surmised that there were mo...

WE HAVE AGAIN TO DEAL WITH THE EXAMPLES OF OUR YOUNGER MAN The most urgent of Dames is working herself up to a grey squall in her detestation of imagerial epigrams. Otherwise Gowe...

IN WHICH WE SEE CARINTHIA PUT IN PRACTICE ONE OF HER OLD FATHER'S LESSONS Seated at his breakfast-table, the earl saw Gower stride in, and could have wagered he knew the destinati...

A FRIGHTFUL DEBATE Pushing through a swarm into the cot, Fleetwood saw Carinthia on a knee beside a girl's lap, where the stripped child lay. Its mother held a basin for the dabbi...

A SURVEY OF THE RIDE OF THE WELSH CAVALIERS ESCORTING THE COUNTESS OF FLEETWOOD TO KENTISH ESSLEMONT A formal notification from the earl, addressed to the Countess of Fleetwood in...

IN WHICH CERTAIN CHANGES MAY BE DISCERNED Behind his white plaster of composure, Lord Fleetwood had alternately raged and wondered during the passage of the Welsh cavalcade up Eas...

BELOW THE SURFACE AND ABOVE The girl was counselled by the tremor of her instincts to forbear to speak of the minor circumstance, that her mistress had, besides a good stick, a go...

BETWEEN CARINTHIA AND HER LORD The earl's easy grace of manner was a ceremonial mantle on him as he grasped the situation in a look. He bent with deferential familiarity to his co...

A DIP INTO THE SPRING'S WATERS The night Lord Fleetwood had passed cured him of the wound Carinthia dealt, with her blunt, defensive phrase and her Welshman. Seated on his coach-b...

THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR Desiring loneliness or else Lord Feltre's company, Fleetwood had to grant a deferred audience at home to various tradesmen, absurdly fussy abo...

RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS They went to their beds doomed to lie and roam as the solitaries of a sleepless night. They met next day like a couple emerging from sirocco deserts, ind...

IN WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE REFUGES FROM THEM The home of husband and wife was under one roof at last. Fleetwood went, like one deported, to his wing of the ho...

THE RETARDED COURTSHIP Carinthia reached Esslemont near noon. She came on foot, and had come unaccompanied, stick in hand, her dress looped for the roads. Madge bustled her shorte...

ON THE ROAD TO THE ACT OF PENANCE His customary wrestle with the night drove Lord Fleetwood in the stillness of the hour after matins from his hated empty Esslemont up again to th...

BETWEEN THE EARL, THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER, AND OF A SILVER CROSS Carinthia was pleased by hearing Lord Fleetwood say to her: 'Your Madge and my Gower are waiting to have the ...

CONTAINS A RECORD OF WHAT WAS FEARED, WHAT WAS HOPED, AND WHAT HAPPENED The Dame is at her thumps for attention to be called to 'the strangeness of it,' that a poor, small, sparse...

A CHAPTER OF UNDERCURRENTS AND SOME SURFACE FLASHES Thus a round and a good old English practical repartee, worthy a place in England's book of her historical popular jests; conce...

THE LAST: WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME It is of seemingly good augury for the cause of a suppliant man, however little for the man himself, when she who has much to pardon c...

I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND II. MR. ADISTER III. CAROLINE IV. THE PRINCESS V. AT THE PIANOS CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC VI. A CO...

XII. MISS MATTOCK XIII. THE DINNER-PARTY XIV. OF ROCKNEY XV. THE MATTOCK FAMILY XVI. OF THE GREAT MR. BULL AND THE CELTIC AND SAXON VIEW OF HIM: ...

WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O'Donnells, and a Patrick, hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound hims...

MR. ADISTER Mr. Patrick O'Donnell drove up to the gates of Earlsfont notwithstanding these emotions, upon which light matter it is the habit of men of his blood too much to brood;...

CAROLINE Men of the Adister family having taken to themselves brides of a very dusty pedigree from the Principality, there were curious rough heirlooms to be seen about the house,...

THE PRINCESS Dinner, and a little piano-music and a song closed an evening that was not dull to Patrick in spite of prolonged silences. The quiet course of things within the house...

AT THE PIANO, CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC Barely had the door shut behind them when Patrick let his heart out: 'The princess?' He had a famished look, and Caroline glided along swiftly ...

A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSHWOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN RACE Later in the day she heard that he was out scouring the country on one of her uncle's horses. She had too many ...

THE MINIATURE Patrick returned to Earlsfont very late; he had but ten minutes to dress for dinner; a short allowance after a heated ride across miry tracks, though he would have e...

CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL Riding homeward from the hunt at the leisurely trot of men who have steamed their mounts pretty well, Mr. Adister questioned Patrick familia...

THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN Patrick left his brother at the second flight of stairs to run and fling on a shooting-jacket, into which he stuffed his treasure, after one peep that eclipsed...

THE BROTHERS 'Con has learnt one secret,' said Philip, quitting his chair. Patrick went up to him, and, 'Give us a hug,' he said, and the hug was given. They were of an equal he...

INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER Letters and telegrams and morning journals lay on the breakfast-table, awaiting the members of the household with combustible matter. Bad news from Ire...

MISS MATTOCK Mrs. Adister O'Donnell, in common with her family, had an extreme dislike of the task of composing epistles, due to the circumstance that she was unable, unaided, to ...

THE DINNER-PARTY Miss Mattock ventured on a prediction in her mind: She was sure the letter would go. And there was not much to signify if it did. But the curious fatality that a...

OF ROCKNEY Battles have been won and the streams of History diverted to new channels in the space of ten minutes. Ladies have been won, a fresh posterity founded, and grand financ...

THE MATTOCK FAMILY That evening's report of the demeanour of the young Irish secretary in harness was not so exhilarating as John Mattock had expected, and he inclined to think hi...

OF THE GREAT MR. BULL AND THE CELTIC AND SAXON VIEW OF HIM: AND SOMETHING OF RICHARD ROCKNEY Meanwhile India, our lubber giant, had ceased to kick a leg, and Ireland, our fever-in...

CROSSING THE RUBICON Rough weather on the Irish sea discharged a pallid file of passengers from the boat at Holyhead just as the morning sun struck wave and mountain with one of t...

CAPTAIN CON'S LETTER Women may be able to tell you why the nursing of a military invalid awakens tenderer anxieties in their bosoms than those called forth by the drab civilian. I...

MARS CONVALESCENT Jane's face was clear as the sky when she handed the letter back to Philip. In doing so, it struck her that the prolonged directness of his look was peculiar: sh...

An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his retirement from active service, led Ge...

This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out, because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so cruel in it, for he was no brilliant son of ...

'Lady Camper is no common enigma,' General Ople observed to his daughter. Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her, for at her suggestion the General had bought a couple of horse...

Elizabeth came riding home to breakfast from a gallop round the park, and passing Lady Camper's gates, received the salutation of her parasol. Lady Camper talked with her through t...

It is a noble thing to say that your road is forward, and it befits a man of battles. General Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think of any other road. Still, albeit not gifted wi...

Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding himself at the beck of a reconsiderin...

Lady Camper's return was the subject of speculation in the neighbourhood, for most people thought she would cease to persecute the General with her preposterous and unwarrantable p...

Our young barbarians have it all their own way with us when they fall into love-liking; they lead us whither they please, and interest us in their wishings, their weepings, and tha...

A proper tenderness for the Peerage will continue to pass current the illustrious gentleman who was inflamed by Cupid's darts to espouse the milkmaid, or dairymaid, under his balla...

A certain time after the marriage, his Grace alighted at the Wells, and did himself the honour to call on Mr. Beamish. Addressing that gentleman, to whom he was no stranger, he com...

The splendid equipage of a coach and six, with footmen in scarlet and green, carried Beau Beamish five miles along the road on a sunny day to meet the young duchess at the boundary...

It was an axiom with Mr. Beamish, our first, if not our only philosophical beau and a gentleman of some thoughtfulness, that the social English require tyrannical government as muc...

Humouring Chloe with his usual considerateness, Mr. Beamish forbore to cast a shadow on her new-born joy, and even within himself to doubt the security of its foundation. Caseldy's...

That evening Duchess Susan played at the Pharaoh table and lost eight hundred pounds, through desperation at the loss of twenty. After encouraging her to proceed to this extremity,...

The total disappearance of the pair of heroes who had been the latest in the conspiracy to vex his delicate charge, gave Mr. Beamish a high opinion of Caseldy as an assistant in su...

Mr. Camwell was in the ante-room as Chloe passed out behind the two incensed supporters of Duchess Susan. 'I shall be by the fir-trees on the Mount at eight this evening,' she sai...

Chloe drew the silken string from her bosom, as she descended the dim pathway through the furies, and set her fingers travelling along it for the number of the knots. 'I have no ri...

At midnight the great supper party to celebrate the reconciliation of Mr. Beamish and Duchess Susan broke up, and beneath a soft fair sky the ladies, with their silvery chatter of ...

The experience of great officials who have laid down their dignities before death, or have had the philosophic mind to review themselves while still wielding the deputy sceptre, te...

A carriage Stopped short in the ray of candlelight that was fitfully and feebly capering on the windy blackness outside the open workshop of Crickledon, the carpenter, fronting the...

The story of the shattered chiwal-glass and the visit of Tinman's old schoolmate fresh from Australia, was at many a breakfast-table before. Tinman heard a word of it, and when he ...

Annette Smith's delight in her native England made her see beauty and kindness everywhere around her; it put a halo about the house on the beach, and thrilled her at Tinman's table...

A month later, after a night of sharp frost on the verge of the warmer days of spring, Mr. Fellingham entered Crikswich under a sky of perfect blue that was in brilliant harmony wi...

One of the most difficult lessons for spirited young men to learn is, that good jokes are not always good policy. They have to be paid for, like good dinners, though dinner and jok...

Round under the cliffs by the sea, facing South, are warm seats in winter. The sun that shines there on a day of frost wraps you as in a mantle. Here it was that Mr. Herbert Fellin...

The moon was over sea. Coasting vessels that had run into the bay for shelter from the North wind lay with their shadows thrown shoreward on the cold smooth water, almost to the ve...

Annette did not shun him next morning. She did not shun the subject, either. But she had been exact in arranging that she should not be more than a few minutes downstairs before he...

The English have been called a bad-tempered people, but this is to judge of them by their manifestations; whereas an examination into causes might prove them to be no worse tempere...

Annette had gone to the big metropolis, which burns in colonial imaginations as the sun of cities, and was about to see something of London, under the excellent auspices of her new...

Elba lay more sheltered from South-east winds under the slopes of down than any other house in Crikswich. The South-caster struck off the cliff to a martello tower and the house on...

HE Passing over Ickleworth Bridge and rounding up the heavily-shadowed river of our narrow valley, I perceived a commotion as of bathers in a certain bright space immediately unde...

SHE Papa never will cease to meet with accidents and adventures. If he only walks out to sit for half an hour with one of his old dames, as he calls them, something is sure to hap...

HE I am carried by the fascination of a musical laugh. Apparently I am doomed to hear it at my own expense. We are secure from nothing in this life. I have determined to stand fo...

SHE Behold me installed in Dayton Manor House, and brought here for the express purpose (so Charles has written me word) of my being studied, that it may be seen whether I am wort...

HE For twenty years of my life I have embraced the phantom of the fairest woman that ever drew breath. I have submitted to her whims, I have worshipped her feet, I have, I believe...

SHE I am at home. There was never anybody who felt so strange in her home. It is not a month since I left my sisters, and I hardly remember that I know them. They all, and even pa...