"All's Well"; or, Alice's Victory

"You had best make up your mind, Grena, whilst you yet may. This may be the last chance to get away hence that you shall have afore--" Mr Roberts hesitated; but his meaning was...

A month had passed since the burning of the Canterbury martyrs. The Bishop of Dover had gone on a visit to London, and the land had rest in his absence. It may be noted here, si...

Alice Benden had reached Cranbrook, and was busied with her various errands. Her position was slightly superior to that of Emmet and Collet, for she was the wife of a man who "l...

"O Aunt Tabitha! have you and Uncle Thomas been to Canterbury? and did you really see dear Aunt Alice? How looks she? and what said she? I do want to know, and Father never seem...

Up and down his garden--or, to speak more accurately, his brother's garden--strolled Mr Justice Roberts, his hands behind his back, on a mild afternoon at the beginning of Decem...

Christie did not term her new friend "nice," as she certainly would have done in the present day. To her ear that word had no meaning except that of particular and precise--the...

Alice had nearly reached the end of the Market Place, when her husband's harsh call arrested her. She had been walking slowly on, so that he might overtake her. On hearing this,...

"Ay, we must go, then," said Mr Roberts, with a long-drawn sigh. "This discovery leaves us no choice. For howso God and we may pardon the child, Father Bastian will not so. We m...

In the court where the prebendaries' chambers were situated, within the Cathedral Close at Canterbury, was an underground vault, known as Monday's Hole. Here the stocks were kep...

"Well, be sure! if there ever was a woman in such a ruck of trouble!" said poor Collet Pardue, wiping her eyes. "Here's my man took to prison, saints knows what for--my man 'at...

The nineteenth of June was the loveliest of summer days, even in the Martyrs' Field at Canterbury, in the hollow at the end of which the seven stakes were set up. The field is n...

Pandora would have spoken as soon as they left the dining-room, but she was stopped by a motion of her aunt's hand. Mrs Collenwood took her into her own bedroom, shut and barred...

There was a good deal of bustle going on in the kitchen of the White Hart, the little hostelry at Staplehurst. It was "fair day," and fairs were much more important things in th...

Mr Justice Roberts had opened the old press, tried all the drawers, and come at last to the secret drawer, of whose existence only he and his brother knew. No sooner had he appl...

Old Margery Danby, the housekeeper at Primrose Croft, was more thoroughly trustworthy than Mr Roberts had supposed, not only in will-- for which he gave her full credit--but in...

In half-an-hour the horses were at the door. Not much was said during the ride to Staplehurst, except that Pandora told her aunt that Christabel was an invalid child, and that h...

Mrs Collenwood unlocked the little wicket, and let herself and Pandora out into the public road. Then she relocked the gate, and after a moment's thought, feeling in the darknes...

Alice Benden looked up as the keeper approached her with that news. The words sounded rough, but the tone was not unkind. There was even a slight tinge of pity in it.

A man to be very much pitied was poor Mr Roberts. Not only had he to pacify the priest, but Mistress Grena's line of defence, plausible as it sounded, had unhappily crossed and...

"And I hope, my dear son," said the Rev. Mr Bastian, with a face and voice as mellifluous as a honeycomb, "that all the members of your household are faithful, and well affected...

"Methinks we be like to have further troubles touching religion in these parts. Marry, I do marvel what folks would be at, that they cannot be content to do their duty, and pay...

It was Mr Roberts's custom to go down to the cloth-works every Tuesday--saints' days excepted--and in pursuance of this habit he made his appearance in the counting-house on the...

In the projecting oriel window of a very pleasant sitting-room, whose inside seat was furnished with blue velvet cushions, sat a girl of seventeen years, dressed in velvet of th...

Of all the persons concerned in our story at this juncture, the least unhappy was Alice Benden in Canterbury Gaol, and the most miserable was Edward Benden at Briton's Mead. His...

It was Saturday evening, and three days after Alice returned home. Mr Benden sat in the chimney-corner, having just despatched a much more satisfactory supper than Mary had ever...

Partly moved by a faint sense of remorse, partly by Mrs Tabitha's sharp speeches, and partly also--perhaps most of all--by his private discomfort in respect of Mary's culinary u...

"But, Aunt Tabitha," urged Christie, for her father sat in silence, and she felt herself bound to defend him, "have you forgotten what the porter said to Father? If they--"

"I should think you'd have to try about a hundred million years!" said Christie. "I feel as if I should be as glad as could be, if a big bear would just come and eat him up!--or...

Perkins was the Cathedral bell-ringer, and the gaoler of Alice Benden. He obeyed the summons of the pompous voice with obsequious celerity, for it belonged to no less a person t...

Mr Justice Roberts sat in his dining-room after supper, with a tankard of ale at his elbow. Had the "pernicious weed" been discovered at that date, he would probably also have h...

"Sil-van-us Par-due!" Five very distinct syllables from his mother greeted the speech wherein Master Silas expressed his appreciation of the action of Mrs Tabitha Hall. "Silas,...

Friswith Hall was returning from Cranbrook in a state of great satisfaction. She had made an excellent bargain; and she was the sort of girl to whose mind a bargain had the flav...

Old Grandfather Hall had got a lift in a cart from Frittenden, and came to spend the day with Roger and Christabel. It was a holy-day, for which cause Roger was at home, for in...

"Truly, Mistress, home to Staplehurst, and the fardel holdeth broadcloth for my lads' new jerkins." The speakers were two women, both on the younger side of middle age, who met...