A waif's progress

From the other end of the breakfast-table he returned--“Well?” and for several minutes this exchange of monosyllables seemed going to be the end--it was not quite the beginning-...

“Sorry is a weak word to express what I feel!” is the heartfelt answer. “Where should I have been now, I should like to know, but for you and Mr. Glanville?”

He had tried to make the question as colourless as possible, but had not been able quite to keep out of his tone a slight indication of bias towards the more welcoming course.

“They must have a _chef_,” said Bonnybell after dinner to herself, as she and Camilla began to tread back their path through the long enfilade of rooms that led from the dining-...

Though early hours--except in the topsy-turvy sense of seeing the sunrise overnight--had never entered into the scheme of Miss Ransome’s existence, and she was as little indebte...

As Miss Ransome was not aware of having made even the ally alluded to by Mr. Tancred overnight, it was with a very self-distrustful heart that next morning she appeared in the b...

After that, being a merciful man, Edward let her get off the historico-artistic gridiron, upon which he had been innocently grilling her. He showed her no more pictures, nor, in...

The planting of Miss Ransome’s siege-train could not be at once taken in hand, as a rapid gallop of the eye over the unknown persons that the room contained showed that not one...

Too late the poor little stranger realized that even such truisms and commonplaces of conversation as the relations of climbing millionaires and smart women for their mutual wea...

“Far from the sun and summer shade”--far, that is to say, from the distractions and liability to intrusion of the more public parts of the house, lay a gallery; and off that gal...

Thus it was not the task-mistress, but a mere footman, whose approaching tread struck compunctious fear into the breast of the pseudo-student in the east gallery--a footman who...

There was weariness in the voice that answered; but neither that quality nor the patience that accompanied and emphasized it had any influence in persuading the putter of the qu...

Of the three denizens of Stillington its owner took by far the easiest mind to bed with her. She had accepted the presence of Bonnybell, with all its attendant ills, in the same...

A week had elapsed, and a morning came on which Edward set off for London accompanied by his wife, instead of, as usual, alone! The result was obvious: freedom--temporary, indee...

So this was the “old friend” with whom the hook for her had been partially baited! Charlie Landon, the hero of that dinner at the Réservoir at Versailles; Charlie Landon, the od...

All was safe. There had been no change of plan on the part of Miss Ransome’s protectors, as, drawing a long breath, she realized on reaching home, and joyfully found the house a...

It was a source of mixed wonder and thankfulness to Miss Ransome on the succeeding day that she got off so cheaply when the discovery of the extent to which she had neglected he...

The moon unexpectedly lighted Mr. Tancred home. As if she had something agreeable to show him, she had shoved and elbowed aside the smoke-coloured curtains, drawn so closely acr...

It was impossible that such an experience, or group of experiences, should not leave traces on the complexion; yet it had to be left to its fate, Camilla’s eye for paint being a...

After all, Edward was better than his word, doing what he had at first wisely declined to do, “breaking” the news to Camilla, and receiving on his own devoted head the first rus...

A steady fine rain had set in, which had lasted with scarcely any daylight intermission, though, as often in wet weather, the nights were fine, since Bonnybell’s absorption into...

“It is for _his_ sake,” she said, in sweet renunciation. “There can be no happiness in married life without confidence, as you have often told me, and since I seem to have enemi...

The morning had come, and with it Toby. As Bonnybell, propitiatingly punctual, appeared at the exactly nine-o’clock breakfast-table, she was informed by the butler, whose tone--...

“I have no opinion of food eaten in bedrooms. If people are well enough to eat, they are well enough to come downstairs; but she is probably not fit to be seen, so for once I wi...

The visitors, arriving ten minutes before their appointed hour, were welcomed--though that is scarcely the word to express the profoundly grave and fully armed civility of Mrs....

In the height of a simoom it seems incredible that the face of Nature should ever recover from its distortion and resume its smiles and dimples, yet a few hours effect this marv...

There was nothing unusual in Camilla’s spending a day of unexplained occupation in London. It therefore excited no surprise when, on a certain Saturday at the end of the first w...

“The sun has gone in. He was shining quite brightly half an hour ago,” Bonnybell said with a slight but meaning glance at the clock, and an accent of very gentle reproach.

“It seems as if you had never been away!” Lady Bletchley said, clasping Bonnybell to a heart still draped in complimentary mourning for the beneficent cousin who had turned her...

“I am afraid you will not find it very gay,” Lady Bletchley had said, “but what with this mourning”--glancing at the very diluted ink of her attire--“and the terrible _corvée_ o...

“It seems delightfully natural to see you here,” responded Felicity, with not inferior fondness. “But I must not have you looking pale because I keep you up listening to my tire...

The spring drew on disagreeably, according to its vernal wont. But if the thermometer did not tell that winter was on the wane, the lengthening days did so, and the flower-baske...

After all, if she had but known, it would not make much difference to Lady Bletchley what or what manner of assistants Mrs. Slammer would have at her stall at the Fancy Fair for...

Felicity’s obsequies had been celebrated with due pomp, and--fate still continuing in her ironic vein--Lady Bletchley’s first visit to the most imposing of her new country house...

A year and a day had passed since Lady Bletchley’s obsequies. (The word is what she would herself have liked to hear applied to them.) All the presidencies, vice-presidencies, m...