Allworth Abbey

“She stood once more in the halls of pride, And the light of her beauty was deified, And she seemed to the eyes of men a star, Lovely but lonely—flashing but far.

The beautiful Asiatic girl soon won her way into every heart in the household. No one could meet the soft, appealing gaze of her large, dark, Oriental eyes, or hear the plaintiv...

I will not think of him—I’ll pace This old ancestral hall, And dream of that illustrious race Whose pictures line the wall. And from their dark and haughty eyes, Though faded no...

When the doctor had left the library, Malcolm Montrose threw himself back in his chair, clasped his forehead between his hands, and strove to master the consternation that seeme...

Through all this long, dreadful investigation, Eudora had remained in the death-chamber of Lady Leaton, bowed down with grief, but unconscious of the heavy clouds that were gath...

The chamber in which Lady Leaton had died, and where Eudora was imprisoned, had, in the olden time, been the abbot’s apartment. It was a vast, dark, gloomy room, now dimly light...

After closing the sliding panel behind him, and carefully adjusting it in its place, Malcolm took the hand of his companion to guide her down the narrow, steep and dangerous ste...

When the door had closed behind Malcolm Montrose, and Eudora was left alone in her strange lodgings for the first time in her life, then all the extreme miseries of her position...

As, with breathless lungs and beating heart she listened, she heard the sound of several heavy footsteps coming slowly up the stairs, and frequently pausing, as if to rest a bur...

In the first place, as soon as Eudora had taken leave, and before she had passed through the secret egress, Tabitha shut her eyes, and turned her back so that she might not actu...

The interests of our history require that we take up the fortunes of the captain’s orphan daughter from the moment that she was left alone on the evening preceding her flight.

Some, indeed, have said that creeping, Lightly to the casement leaping, Slily through the window peeping, They a ghostly maid have seen. To the oaken sill she clingeth, And her...

Through the lighted window prying, Softly on the bright pane sighing, Then in sudden panic flying, Through the untrodden gloom, To the dark oak-tree she cometh, Round its trunk...

Meanwhile Eudora remained in strict seclusion at her obscure lodgings in the Borough. Her voluntary close confinement within her own apartments excited no suspicion in the guile...

Oh, God! that one might see the book of fate, And read the revolution of the times— Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea! a...

She deemed him dead, in a foreign land; Did her smile come back with its glory bland, Lighting her face as in other years, Ere shame and sorrow had taught her tears?

“And now they are standing face to face; Hath a dream come over that sylvan place? One of those visions ghastly and wild, That makes her shrink like a frightened child?

She had seen her father! her father, whose sudden flight, mysterious wanderings, and unknown fate, had been the great subject of wonder, speculation and conjecture to her own se...

“Dearest hopes and joys may perish— Lost in an hour; All the love the heart can cherish May lose its power! But when the storms gather o’er thee Do not despair, Heaven can ever...

“Our actions travel and are veiled; and yet We sometimes catch a fearful glimpse of one When out of sight its march hath well nigh gone, An unveiled thing which we can ne’er for...

Her veil was backward thrown; Relieving tears refused to flow, All drank by her great thirsty woe, She seemed transformed to stone. Save that at times her white lips quivered, A...

Thus on her doom to think, Well may the dews of torture now Hang bead-like on her straining brow, Well may her spirit shrink. ’Tis hard in youth to yield our breath; To die in t...

Condemned to death—Oh! dread The thoughts of coming suffering—there The scaffold stands in morning’s air, Crowds wave-like round her spread, Their eyes upraised to see her die,...

She looked how pallid there! Not starting, sighing, weeping now; The quiet anguish of her brow Was written by Despair. Ah me! despite a governed breast, Seeming the while in pla...

“A friend! and thine the ruthless part To break the bruised reed; Coldly to crush the trusting heart In time of deepest need; To quench the lingering, quivering ray, Of Hope’s j...

Condemned to death—how near The fatal, terrible to-morrow! ’Twould end her agony and sorrow, Yet, oh, how fraught with fear! She counted—mind’s fore-torturing hell— Hours, minut...

A lamp faint lit the cell, Feebly upon her iron bed, Feebly upon her drooping head, Its sickly quiverings fell: The silent watchers sat apart, What passed in that poor bleeding...

Life! life! Oh, Heaven, for this! To gaze again on God’s bright sun, To see the moss-marged streamlet run, To feel the wind’s soft kiss; To meet loved eyes where pity glows, To...

What hears she?—a slight sound— The opening of the cell’s dark door,— Bright eyes—a word, and nothing more. Quickly she gazed around, Then, passionate, flung her hands on high,...

Malcolm paced up and down before the prison walls. The sky was “blind with a double dark” of night and clouds. The huge building itself seemed only a blacker shadow in the black...

Long and fearful was the watch kept by poor Tabitha Tabs, who had stationed herself at the back gate of the lawn to await Annella’s return. As hour after hour passed away she gr...

The little vessel sailed onward over the blue sea. She was bound for a small and distant port on the coast of France, but she made slow way against a wind almost dead ahead.

“And well my folly’s meed you gave, Who forfeited, to be your slave, All here and all beyond the grave! You saw another’s face more fair, You knew her of broad lands the heir, F...