A City Schoolgirl and Her Friends

'These are the facts, Miss Wharton; hard facts no doubt, but you wished for the truth, and indeed I could not have hidden it from you even if I had wished to do so.' So said a k...

The three occupants of the housekeeper's room took the unexpected visitors in very different and characteristic ways. The housekeeper became what Vava called more 'feverish' tha...

'They are not quite ladies and gentlemen--I mean, a lady and gentleman--but they are rather kind, and I think they will take care of our furniture, Stella; so I should let them...

There was nothing now to keep them at Lomore. Mr. Stacey's clerks had made an inventory of the contents of the house; David M'Taggart and Mrs. Morrison had packed their 'young l...

'But, Stella, you have not to be at your office till ten o'clock! What will you do with yourself for this half-hour?' asked Vava next morning as her sister left her at the gates...

When the two girls stood outside the door they turned and looked at each other for a moment, and then without a word Stella led the way down the corridor to her own little room.

'Oh Stella, it's a mist, a blacky-yellow mist--I mean a fog! How horrid! What shall I do here all by myself while you are in the City? And how will you get there? I shall be so...

'Do you think you can walk to school by yourself this morning, Vava?' inquired Stella a little doubtfully as they stood at the parting of their ways one week-day morning in the...

In one of the City of London's busiest thoroughfares, among the numerous plates bearing the names and callings of the occupants of the different chambers or offices in a certain...

'Don't be tiresome; you know quite well what I mean. What are we to do to entertain them? They will get here at half-past twelve, after they have been to church. We can't go to...

'Hallo, Vava!' said a voice behind her, as Vava Wharton was on her way to school a few days after the Sunday she and her sister had spent at the ladies' hostel.

'I have made such a wonderful discovery,' observed Eva to Stella Wharton, as she sat with the Wharton sisters and Amy Overall at the little table which was now left by common co...

It had become a custom that Vava should accompany her sister to the City on Saturdays and sit in the housekeeper's room, and on these occasions Mr. James would drop into Mrs. Ry...

The mystery of Doreen's behaviour being cleared up, the two Whartons thought no more of Mr. James and his acquaintance with their movements. But a week later, when the little ho...

'I am tired already,' said Eva with a yawn, as they started from Blackstead Station to walk to Heather Road. It was not far, and it was too early for any cabs to be at the station.

Eva's presentiment was already a thing of the past, for she was the merriest of the four, and the day would not have been half such fun nor have passed so pleasantly and easily...

'Stella! Stella! wake up! the sun is shining, and I can see a tree, and hear birds singing, and I feel so happy that I really must get up, although it is Sunday morning and we h...

Vava coloured up, for she remembered in a flash that it was to secure that unlucky letter of hers that her sister was going up to town so early. 'Oh that letter!' she said, in s...

Some months later it would have seemed impossible to Stella that she had worked herself into a state about such a trifle as a foolish letter from Vava to the junior partner, whi...

Both the sitting-rooms at 2 Heather Road were rarely used at the same time, for Vava learnt her lessons either with Doreen or with Mrs. Morrison in the kitchen, which, the girl...

'But, nursie, you don't think Eva is doing what is right, do you?' inquired Vava, who was quite put out at this way of taking what the girl had been half-afraid to tell her, for...

'We shall just have a quiet Easter here with nursie, Vava; you won't mind not having sea-breezes now that you have her, will you?' Stella inquired of her sister a week before th...

As a rule, an employer feels no diffidence in offering one of his employés a rise in salary; but Mr. James Jones found himself wondering how he was to tell Miss Wharton that the...

Looking back on that examination week, Vava declared afterwards that it was the longest week and the most eventful of her whole life--it 'began badly and ended madly,' was how s...

When Vava had arrived at school, Miss Briggs, who really had nothing to do with her, although she had taken it upon her to write to Stella about her friendship with Doreen Hackn...

Vava meanwhile went to Stella's new office, and found her sister, with hat and jacket on, waiting for her. 'You have got done? I suppose they don't bring you tea here?' said Vava.

Vava tossed and turned and went to sleep, only to dream of prison cells, in which Eva was secured by heavy chains, which she (Vava) tried in vain to break, and it was from one o...

The days flew by until the eventful Friday when there was the prize-giving, the play of Dante, in which Vava had the rôle of heroine, and, to wind up, the dinner-party and theat...

It is three months later, a lovely evening in June, and the back garden of No. 2 Heather Road was a blaze of fine flowers, and under the apple-tree in the centre of the lawn sat...