Agatha's Husband: A Novel

--If there ever was a woman thoroughly like her name, it was Agatha Bowen. She was good, in the first place--right good at heart, though with a slight external roughness (like t...

Of all the misfortunes incidental to youth (falling in love included), there are few greater than that of having nothing to do. From this trial, Agatha Bowen, being unhappily a...

A week--nay, more than a week slipped by in the customary monotony of that large, placidly genteel, Bedford Square house, and Agatha heard nothing of the house round the corner,...

To say that Agatha Bowen slept but ill that night would be unnecessary; since there is probably no girl who did not do so after receiving a first love-letter. And this was indee...

Next morning Miss Bowen astonished every one, and excited once more Mrs. Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to take a message for her to Major...

The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury Church--with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and Jane's sickly unhappy face at the othe...

Whether Mr. Harper, being a rather proud and reserved individual, was not “so happy to be seen in the evening” as an attendant planet openly following his sphered idol, or wheth...

“I wish, as I stated yesterday, that Miss Bowen's property should be settled entirely upon herself. This is the only course which to my thinking can reconcile a man to the humil...

It was a most unconscionably early hour on the wedding morning when Mrs. Thornycroft, who had insisted on mounting guard overnight in Bedford Square, to see that all things were...

“Yes, thank you, quite warm,” she said, turning round a little, and then turning back. She sat working, or seeming to work, at a large bay window that fronted the sea at Brighto...

It had been arranged with Emma Thornycroft that Mrs. Harper should take the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience--for Agatha herself was a perfect chi...

During the few days that elapsed between Major Harper's visit and their quitting London, she had scarcely seen her husband. He had been out continually, coming home to dinner ti...

On the morning--her first morning at Kingcombe Holm--Mrs. Harper woke refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was pencilled distinctly against the blues...

The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house suitable for the young couple. They had not sa...

To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His grandiose air was then so mixed with...

“So here is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept up till midnight!” said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity. “It is provoking for the mistress of...

He had not indeed, though he had stood at the window in meditation ever since breakfast-time. As for Agatha, she had been so tired with her excursion the previous day that she h...

It was late afternoon. The rain had ceased, and glowed into one of those soft October days, so exquisitely sunny and fair. The light glimmered through the closed Venetian blinds...

Mr. Harper did not ride home by midnight, as his wife was well assured he would not do, though with some idle hope put into her mind by Eulalie, she sat at the window until the...

When, late at night, the party reached Kingcombe, it was resolved that the Harpers should remain there until morning. Agatha, worn out with bodily fatigue and the great tension...

She had given the same sullen answer to every visitor for four weeks, shutting herself up in stern seclusion, determined that, whatever cruel comments they made, the neighbourho...

“What, up and dressed already, without sending for me? Did you not promise last night that I should do everything for you just as if I were your child? How very naughty you are,...

The whole household was in terror and disorder. Eulalie had rushed screaming from the room--Mary went about, trembling like a leaf, trying to get restoratives--Agatha knelt on t...

A night and a day had passed, and the household had grown somewhat accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon do most families settle themselves aft...

He leant against the doorway, the miserable ghost of his gay self. Born only for summer weather, on him any real blast of remorse or misfortune fell suddenly, entirely, overthro...

It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine Harper in the family vault; the portrait...

Anne Valery did not die. Agatha had said she would not; and the young heart's creed was true. It had its foundation in a higher law than that of physical suffering.

“They are sure to be home to-morrow; nothing can prevent their being home to-morrow,” said Agatha, as she read over neither for the first time, nor the second, nor the third, he...

Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for many years--and Heaven grant! for many more to come--when a noble ship, with her full complement of human b...

It was Christmas morning. All the good people of Kingcombe were going to church. One only household did not go to church--there was hardly need, when all their life henceforward...