Adrienne

SHE stood at the dining-room window looking out upon a snowy world. The cypresses and firs at the end of the lawn were bowed down with their weight of purity. There was great li...

Drake was virtually the butler, but he was in reality the factotum in the house. He valeted both the Admiral and the General; he initiated the maids as well as the bootboy into...

IT was spring at last. The winter had been a cold and late one; now with a rush of warm bright weather every tree and bush was waking into life. Adrienne, with her hands full of...

Adrienne had seen that the spare room was ready and comfortable for him. She even put a blue jar of daffodils on the writing bureau, and wondered, as she did so, if he would not...

IT was towards the end of a lovely afternoon in May that Adrienne arrived at her destination. Both her uncles had accompanied her to town, and seen her off in the boat express t...

SUCH a lovely morning! Adrienne got up and threw open her windows and shutters. Annette brought her coffee and petit pain at eight o'clock, and told her that Madame would like t...

"A rich American, a client of my husband's, is anxious to give his daughter, an only child, a little souvenir of his visit to Orleans. He wants something antique, historic, with...

ADRIENNE was taking a walk through the village. Guy had gone to Paris for a few days on business. The Countess was in the deepest depths of despondency. Adrienne found it quite...

ADRIENNE thought a great deal about the English girl and her brother during the next few days. She would have liked to call and make inquiries, but her aunt made incessant deman...

WITHIN the next few days Adrienne paid two visits in the village, one to little Agatha again and one to Madame Bouverie. This last one was compulsory; for a long time she had ma...

GUY departed three days later. He was very uncommunicative; to Adrienne, he seemed like a man walking in a dream. She hardly knew her energetic cousin. Her aunt complained bitte...

He was a good listener, but somehow she did not fancy to-day that he was quite so wrapped up in her life as he used to be, and presently she paused:

THE days that followed were like a calm before a storm. Adrienne went to see her village friends. They all told her how glad they were to see her back. Strangely enough, with al...

"No; but I should never be surprised at anything he did," she said, recovering her equanimity very quickly. "He is very reserved and secretive. Who has been talking to you?"

IT was nearly three weeks later. The Countess would not hurry her departure for Orleans. She continually postponed the date. The Bouveries without a word suddenly disappeared fr...

"I am sitting down to break a bit of news to you. It may astonish you, it has astonished me myself, but it has just seemed to happen in some inexplicable fashion. I am going to...

Adrienne had arrived at her country station, and, as usual, her uncle was there to meet her. He had violets in his buttonhole, and his whole appearance was alert and smart.

SNOW was upon the old Château, obliterating all paths and flower beds, showing only a wide expanse of pure white around it. The afternoon was already drawing in, lights were twi...

Life in the little French village to Adrienne was entirely delightful. She was a good housewife, and though since her aunt's time the household had been augmented by more maids...

THAT night Adrienne could not sleep. She lay very still, not wishing to disturb her husband; and she took herself to task for imagining she heard strange noises round the old Ch...