A Country Gentleman and His Family

Warrender met his mother and sister with a face somewhat cloudy, which, however, he did his best to clear as he came in, in response to their pleasure at the sight of him. It di...

The wedding morning had been confusing and full of many occupations, as wedding mornings always are. Chatty, left in the quiet of her room, had received innumerable little visit...

Warrender had a long conference with Dick Cavendish in the old library at the Warren. Mr. Wilberforce, who had been sent for, came at once, full of curiosity and excitement; and...

Nevertheless Dick went down to Highcombe on the following Saturday. There are two ways in which advice can work: one by convincing the man who receives it to abandon his own evi...

Lady Markland came out of her room a little after, paler than usual, with a great air of stateliness and gravity, conscious to her finger points of the looks that met her, and p...

How strange it is to realise, after the first blow has fallen, that this changed life is still the same! When it brings with it external changes, family convulsions, the alterat...

By this time London was on the eve of its periodical moment of desertion; the fashionable people all gone or going; legislators weary and worn, blaspheming the hot late July day...

On the mantelpiece of the little lodging-house drawing-room in Half Moon Street, supported against the gilt group that decorated the timepiece, was a note containing an invitati...

Two little girls are as unlike as anything can be to one little boy. This gave Warrender a sort of angry satisfaction in the ridiculous incident which had happened in his life....

When the ladies left London, Dick Cavendish had felt himself something like a wreck upon the shore. The season was very near its end, and invitations no longer came in dozens. T...

The recollection of that unexplained and ill-timed merriment clouded over the household horizon even next morning; but Dick was so cheerful and so much at his ease that things a...

Theodore Warrender was still at Oxford when his father died. He was a youth who had come up from his school with the highest hopes of what he was to do at the university. It had...

It may now be necessary to indicate the outline, at least, of an incident which was the reason why, at the most critical period of the affairs both of her brother and sister, Mi...

It may be supposed what the sight of Theo all bound up and bleeding was to the family in the Warren. He had not at all the look of a benevolent deliverer, suffering sweetly from...

Dick Cavendish called at Half Moon Street next day: and found the ladies just returned from a walk, and a little tired and very glad to see a friendly face, which his was in the...

A minute after he was in the room where Lady Markland sat with her great writing table against the light. He did not know how he got there. It seemed impossible that it could ha...

The pony walked on, sometimes a little quicker, sometimes a little slower, while Geoff dreamed. No doubt the pony too had his own thoughts. His opinion was that summer had come...

Mrs. Warrender coloured a little, as one is apt to do when condemned by too much praise. It is difficult sometimes to tell which is worse, the too little or the too much: but sh...

Theo came home neither late nor early; neither in joy nor in despair. He came back harassed and impatient, eaten up with disquietude and suspense. He was pale and red in success...

It will be divined from what has been said that there was one element in the life at the Warren which has not yet been entered into, and that was Mrs. Warrender. The family were...

Markland lay as usual, bare and white against the sun, upon that day of fate. The young trees had grown a little and stood basking, scarcely shivering, leaning their feeble youn...

Dick was astir very early next morning. He did his packing hurriedly, and strolled out in the freshness of the early day. But not to enjoy the morning sunshine. He walked along...

It was a violent beginning; but perhaps it was as well, on the whole, that the idea of Theo's future supremacy should have been got into the heads of the duller portion of the f...

The ladies were in town three weeks, which brought them from June into July, when London began to grow hot and dusty, and the season to approach its close. They were just about...

"Of course it was perfectly right. No one could say that I was in any way infatuated about Lady Markland, never from the first: but I quite approve of that. Why should she call...

They all sat round the table and took their evening meal together before Lady Markland went back. It was not a ceremonious, grand dinner, as if there had been a party. Old Josep...

Markland was a much more important place than the Warren. It was one of the chief places in the county in which the family had for many generations held so great a position. It...

Dick Cavendish went out for a walk. It was a little chilly after the beautiful day; there was rain in the air, and neither moon nor stars, which in the country, where there are...

Next day Mr. Longstaffe called upon Mrs. Warrender, nominally about the alterations that had to be made in her house, but really with objects much more important. He made notes...

Mrs. Warrender and Chatty left the Warren in the end of the week in which these events had taken place. They had a farewell visit from the rector and Mrs. Wilberforce, which no...

"Dick!" Curiously enough Dick had not thought till then that even a high gate may be vaulted by a man whose heart has leaped it before him, and who is in perfect training, and k...

Meanwhile the mother and son took their walk. It was a very silent walk, without much outward trace of that enjoyment which Minnie had felt so cruelly out of place: but no doubt...

Lord Markland died at the Warren that night. He never recovered consciousness, nor knew that his wife was by his side through all the dreadful darkening of the summer evening, w...

After this extraordinary and terrible event there were a great many conferences and explanations, which did little good as may be understood. Dick's life--the part of it which h...

The elder Mr. Warrender was a country gentleman of an undistinguished kind. The county gentry of England is a very comprehensive class. It includes the very best and most deligh...

"Two little girls. He came over to tell us yesterday. Poor Theo! He is pleased, of course, but I think half ashamed too. It seems a little ridiculous to have twins, and the first."

Mrs. Warrender and her daughter came home in the early summer, having lingered longer than they intended in the South. They had lingered for one thing, because a long and strang...

Lady Markland had recovered in a great degree from the shock of her husband's death. It had been, as Mrs. Warrender said, a shock rather than a sorrow. There is no such reconcil...

The post town for the Warren was Highcombe, which was about four miles off. To drive there had always been considered a dissipation, not to say a temptation, for the Warrenders;...

"When is Dick Cavendish coming?" said Mrs. Wilberforce to her husband. "I wish he hadn't chosen to come now, of all times in the world, just when we can do nothing to amuse him;...

The girls went round by the rectory on their way home. It was a large red brick house, taller almost than the church, which was a very old church, credibly dating from the thirt...

Warrender went off very quickly upon his long walk. He could not but feel, notwithstanding his little bravado of indifference, that it was a very important decision, which he ha...

The return of the Warrenders to their home was not the usual calm delight of settling again into one's well-known place. The house at Highcombe was altogether new to their exper...

He turned to look back as he closed the little gate for foot passengers at the end of the bare road which was called the avenue, and took off his hat as she waved her hand to hi...

The moment, however, was approaching when Warrender had to declare for himself what he intended to do. It is true that he had given indications of previous intention which had p...

Dick went back to town on the Monday, having taken no decisive step, nor said any decisive words. All that he had done was to make it apparent that the matter was not to end the...

Various scenes to which Markland was all unaccustomed had been taking place in these days, alternations of rapture and gloom on the part of Warrender, of shrinking and eagerness...

"Perhaps these are interchangeable terms," he said, with the angry smile she knew so well; "but without discussing that matter I am determined that this business shall go no far...

That night Lady Markland did not close her eyes. The strength of resistance, of indignation, of self-assertion, failed her, as was inevitable in the long and slow hours, during...

Lizzie Hampson heard, like everybody in the village, of what was about to happen. Miss Chatty was going to be married. At first all that was known was that the bridegroom was a...

Geoff's heart was full. He pondered all the way home, neglecting all the blandishments of Black's conversation, who had visited a friend or two in Highcombe, and was full of che...

Lizzie had a tiresome argument with her grandmother that night, who could not understand why she should be so bent on going into Highcombe by the first train. To see Miss Chatty...