A Modern Instance

Mr. Howells has written a long series of poems, novels, sketches, stories, and essays, and has been perhaps the most continuous worker in the literary art among American writers...

He perceived the anxiety that the girl's pride could not keep out of her tone, but he answered indifferently, “I'm a little too near that color myself. I hear that red hair's co...

“There's a good deal of sense in that,” the Squire admitted. “The worst scamps I ever knew were active fellows. Still, industry is in a man's favor. If the faculty knew anything...

The audacious humor of his position sufficed with a people who liked a joke rather better than anything else; in his old age, his infidelity was something that would hardly have...

“Now, let's play we're getting dinner.” It was quite time; in the next moment the coffee boiled up, and if she had not caught the lid off and stirred it down with her spoon, it...

Bartley looked after her a moment, and continued to glance in that direction when he stood stamping the snow off his feet, and brushing it from his legs and arms, before he remo...

Bartley hung over the boy with such a terror in his soul as he had never had before. He believed that he had killed him, and in this conviction came with the simultaneity of eve...

The more Bartley dwelt upon his hard case, during the week that followed, the more it appeared to him that he was punished out of all proportion to his offence. He was in no moo...

She sat down in the chair which her mother had left, and clutched the back of another, on which her fingers opened and closed convulsively, while she caught her breath in irregu...

“You don't say so!” exclaimed Kinney. “Well!” he said, as if he might as well swallow this pill, too, while he was about it. “Well, what's the use? I never was the figure for cl...

Kinney hurried after him, imploring and protesting in a low voice, trying to get before him, and longing to lay his floury paws upon him and detain him by main force, but even i...

They sat down before the fire, hand in hand, and talked of the light things that swim to the top, and eddy round and round on the surface of our deepest moods. They made merry o...

The prices were of all degrees of exorbitance, and they varied for no reason from house to house; one landlady had been accustomed to take more and another less, but never littl...

Mr. Witherby looked at it, with the worry of a dull man who has assumed unintelligible duties. He had let the other papers “get ahead of him” on several important enterprises la...

No company of men can fail to have a good time at a public dinner, and the good time began at once with these journalists, whose overworked week ended in this Saturday evening j...

Bartley had instructions from Ricker to see that his report was very full socially. “We want something lively, and at the same time nice and tasteful, about the whole thing, and...

“And now as to terms,” repeated Bartley to himself; but he said nothing aloud. He felt that Witherby had cut out a great deal of work for him, and work of a kind that he could n...

Mrs. Halleck made from time to time a little murmur of satisfaction in Marcia's loyalty, and then sank back into the meek silence that she only emerged from to propose more tea...

When his ward came of age he made over to her the fortune, increased by his careful management, which her father had left her, and advised her to put her affairs in the hands of...

In these days they took their fill of the delight of young fatherhood and motherhood. After its morning bath Bartley was called in, and allowed to revere the baby's mottled and...

“Yes,” said Marcia, with the proud humility of a mother, who cannot deny the merit of her child, “and she sleeps the whole night through. I'm _never_ up with her. Bartley says s...

“No; there isn't a better conscience than Witherby carries in the whole city. He's perfectly honest. He not only believes that he has a right to run the Events in his way; but h...

There was something ghastly comical in it all, and Halleck stood in fear of its absurdity hardly less than of its tragedy. He rapidly revolved in his mind the possibilities of t...

“Oh, I know your doctrine,” said Halleck, rising. “It's horrible! How a man with any kindness in his heart can harbor such a cold-blooded philosophy _I_ don't understand. I wish...

The talk fell, and Halleck attempted to read a newspaper, while Olive looked out of the window. She presently turned to him. “Did you ever fancy any resemblance between Mrs. Hub...

Kinney doubled himself up over the side of his chair in recognition of Ricker's joke; and when Bartley rose and asked him if he would come into the parlor and have a cigar, he s...

He meant to make a raise out of Ben Halleck, as he phrased it to himself. He knew that Halleck had plenty of money; he could make the stock itself over to him as security; he di...

He stayed a good deal at home, now, for he had leisure, and it was a much more comfortable place since Marcia had ceased to question or reproach him. She did not interfere with...

The elder sisters discussed Halleck's project apart between themselves, as their wont was with any family interest, and they bent over a map of South America, so as to hide what...

“I don't wish to spare myself!” retorted Halleck. He shook off the touch that Atherton had laid upon his shoulder, and started up the hill; the other overtook him, and, like a m...

Marcia came in upon the lawyer before he had thought, after parting with Miss Kingsbury, to tell the clerk in the outer office to deny her; but she was too full of her own troub...

The day came, and the hope and strength which the mere light so strangely brings to the sick in spirit as well as the sick in body visited Marcia. She abhorred the temptation of...

He was doomed at every meeting to hear her glorify a man whom he believed a heartless traitor, to plot with her for the rescue from imaginary captivity of the wretch who had cru...

“He said he had a concrete purpose, and wouldn't listen to abstractions. Yes, he talked like a woman. But you know he wasn't right, Clara, though _you_ talk like a woman, too. T...

Halleck did not see Marcia again till the train had run far out of the city, and was again sweeping through the thick woods, and flashing out upon the levels of the fields where...

Bartley's attorney was prompt to interpose again. He protested that the printed advertisement was sufficient notice to the defendant, whenever it came to her knowledge, or even...

Atherton read on: “These are the questions which I ask myself in my despair. She is free, now; but am I free? Am I not rather bound by the past to perpetual silence? There are t...