A Young Girl's Wooing

Madge was so discouraged that she contented herself with a manner of listless apathy during dinner, and then retired to her room. Graydon was giving her so little thought that t...

Instead of Graydon there came a letter saying that he would be detained abroad another week. The heat was oppressive, and the family physician said that little Jack should be ta...

Madge had often turned wistful eyes toward High Peak, and on the last Saturday before their final return to the city she said to Graydon, "Dare we attempt it? Perhaps if we gave...

Graydon slept very late the following morning. He found out that he was tired, and resolved to indulge his craving for rest so far as his suit to Miss Wildmere would permit. Whe...

"Oh, I'm so glad that I've lost my appetite! You can't know how much a horse means to me. It was after I began to ride that I grew strong enough to hope."

"Well, I have come back to civilization and all its miseries," thought Graydon. "I was among scenes that know not Wildmeres or Arnaults. 'Oh, my prophetic soul!' I felt that the...

Early in the beautiful morning of the following day Graydon was out securing a light carriage, for he reasoned that after watching all night Madge would be too weary to enjoy ho...

Madge locked her doors, bathed her hot face, then paced her room in great agitation, feeling that not only her own happiness was in peril, but Graydon's also. Her mental distres...

During the last moments of their drive Madge and Graydon were comparatively silent. They were passing dwellings, meeting strangers, and they could not, with the readiness of nat...

The dawn of the following sacred day was bright, beautiful, and serene, bringing to the world a new wealth of opportunity. Miss Wildmere began its hours depressed and undecided....

The deep experience, the touchstone of character, of latent power, if such existed, had come to Madge Alden. For days she had drifted helplessly on the rising tide of an apparen...

Graydon's uppermost thought now was to make his peace with Madge. He dismissed all his former theories about her as absurd, and felt that, whether he understood her or not, she...

"Madge," said Graydon, rejoining her on the piazza, and giving her his arm, while Mrs. Muir sat down to wait for her husband, "you wear a rose like the one you sent me when we p...

They found that Mr. Muir had arrived, and no family party in the long supper-room appeared more free from disturbing thoughts and memories than the one gathered at the banker's...

Madge Alden was almost seventeen, and yet she was in many respects a child. Scenes portrayed in books had passed before her mind like pictures, having no definite significance....

It has been shown that Arnault believed the decisive period to have come that would see the success or failure of his "operation" in the Catskills. Keen, penetrating, he had com...

As a general rule Graydon was not conscious of nerves, and had received the fact of their existence largely on faith. But to-day they asserted themselves in a manner which excit...

Methodical Henry Muir found that the events of the last few days had resulted in a reaction and weariness which he could not readily shake off, and he had expressed an intention...

After a light supper Graydon went in search of Stella, but she was nowhere to be found, nor had the warm evening lured Mrs. Wildmere from her room. He had learned that Arnault w...

As we have seen, Madge could not resume her old relations with Graydon Muir. Indeed, the turning-point in her life had been the impulse and decision to escape them by going away...

Mrs. Muir of course heard often from her sister, and was satisfied with the general assurance that she was better and steadily improving. Madge, however, was rather indefinite i...

Mr. and Mrs. Wayland had become so attached to Madge that they were the more ready to listen to her solicitation that they should accompany her East and visit their old haunts....

Graydon dreaded embarrassment when meeting Madge at dinner, but was agreeably disappointed. There was nothing in the young girl's manner which suggested a vexed consciousness of...

Graydon had completed his final transactions abroad with more expedition than he had anticipated, and, having been favored by a quick passage, had arrived several days sooner th...

Madge was simply fatigued from her long journey, and not oppressed with want of sleep, for in passing through uninteresting portions of the country she had given herself up to r...

At last Madge was alone. Her sister had suggested everything she could think of, meanwhile bewailing the young girl's extreme imprudence. Madge entreated for quiet and rest, and...

Mr. Wildmere looked almost ten years older when he came down to what he supposed would be a solitary breakfast; but something like hope and gladness reappeared on his haggard fa...

When Madge Alden was seventeen years of age an event occurred which promised to be the misfortune of her life. At first she was almost overwhelmed and knew not what to do. She w...

Mr. Arnault's manner as he passed struck both Graydon and Madge as indicating strong feeling and stern purpose. In order to account for his action, it is necessary to go back in...

Graydon felt that it was scarcely possible to resent Mr. Arnault's tactics or to blame Miss Wildmere. The former certainly had as good a right to be a suitor as himself, and eve...

Mrs. Muir came into Madge's room for a bit of the gossip that she dearly loved, but, as usual, obtained little information or surmise from the young girl. "I'm glad you came dow...

"We are going to to-morrow by first train," said the young girl. "Henry says he must return to town for the day, and I shall accompany him to do some shopping."

The band had been discoursing lively strains for some time, and Miss Wildmere had at last dragged her mother down for a chaperon--the only available one as yet. The anxious moth...

Miss Wildmere had promised to drive with Graydon on the following morning, but Madge felt as if heaven had interfered in her behalf, for the skies were clouded, and the rain fel...

Miss Wildmere appeared in one of her most brilliant moods that evening. There was a dash of excitement, almost recklessness, in her gray eyes. She and Mr. Arnault had been deput...

Under a renewed impulse of loyalty Graydon intercepted Miss Wildmere as she was going to her room, and said: "The clouds in the west are all breaking away--they ever do, you kno...

Miss Wildmere's indignant virtue was not soothed on the following morning, when, as she returned from a drive with Arnault, Graydon galloped up on a superb bay horse, and Madge...

Having heard that one of the finest views among the mountains was to be had at Indian Head, a vast overhanging precipice facing toward the entrance to the Kaaterskill Clove, Gra...

Mr. Muir was to depart on the early train the following morning, and was pleased when Madge opened her door at the same time and said, "I'm going to see that you have a good bre...

Stella Wildmere would not leave the seclusion of her room. As the hours passed the more overwhelming grew her disappointment and humiliation, and her chief impulse now was to ge...