Alone

Josephine Read gave a party--her first, and the first of the season; an onerous undertaking for a young, and comparatively inexperienced housekeeper; but she went about it brave...

The most spacious of Mrs. Truman's chambers was prepared for the ladies' dressing-room, on the evening of the party; and there were no spare corners, although several of the nei...

Miss Carleton acknowledged the appearance of her desk-mate on the succeeding morning, by an inclination of the head and a smile; and nothing more passed between them until the h...

The trembling which mingled with her transport, was so foreign to Ida's ardent temperament, that she doubted sometimes, if she had indeed found peace. But as her filial love and...

Mr. Read was in his private sitting-room;--it adjoined his chamber, and his longest walk was from one apartment to the other. The sun beamed cheerfully through the damask curtai...

Sunday was rainy, and Ida was deprived of the opportunity of judging whether Miss Arnold's church behaviour was as Mr. Copeland had portrayed it. But she was to learn how just t...

In the bosom of the forest, the tall oaks girdling it, like a band of mailed warriors, changed by the spell of beauty from assailants to a guard, lay a little glade, free from b...

It was so cold and damp in the morning, that Rachel, in virtue of her nursely prerogatives, forbade her mistress' rising before breakfast. Ida was not averse to keeping her room...

Mr. Purcell, himself an able connoisseur and liberal patron of the fine arts, never suffered a suitable occasion to pass, without endeavoring to implant, and cultivate like tast...

Poplar-Grove was comparatively a modern place; having been built by the present proprietor at the time of his marriage. The house was of brick, large and commodious; and flanked...

John Dana, his wife and little ones, attended Ida to Sunnybank. They arrived late at night, tired and sleepy; but their sunrise matins were caroled by Ida, as she sang a lively...

Spring had departed, and the good citizens of Richmond complained as piteously of the heat, as though every zephyr that awoke for miles around, did not sweep over their seven hi...

Our youthful debutantes were plunged into the maelstrom of a fashionable season; a whirl which, in its outermost circles, was as gratifying to the feverish energy of Ida as to t...

"I'm very lonely now, Carry! and weary, and wakeful and home-sick. You and your home have spoiled me; my heart has been enlarged, only to aggravate the old empty feeling; you ha...

"How can I help it, when after travelling with us for weeks you suddenly resolve to return to Eastern Virginia by yourself; and to that lonesome place in the country, which you...

Nothing appeared less likely, at this period, than the fulfilment of Lynn's prognostications of his destiny. He collected encouragement and praise at every turn. A Bayard in soc...

"You would not fret your dear heart with harrowing doubts of my love for you and Poplar-grove, if you could peep in upon me this morning," wrote Ida. "Mr. Read is worse. I am un...

Anna Talbot's sketch of Emma's privations was not over-drawn. If her condition had been tolerable, an offer from Ida Ross, as she recollected her,--proud and unsociable,--would...

Laura Pinely was practising her music lesson in the parlor one day, when the entrance of a visitor transferred the motion from her fingers to her feet. "I only glanced at him as...

"Our last ride--can it be!" said Lynn, when the horses were brought to the gate, early in a September afternoon. Ida smiled faintly. The parting of the morrow, was, to her, the...

It was chinquapen season; and a grove of "bushes" on the outskirts of the Poplar-grove plantation resounded with the jocund voices of a nutting party. The green beards rolled ba...

To her, natural disposition and practice made the task easy; for her pupil, it was arduous beyond her worst expectation. Her reputation was established; the wall she had erected...

Ellen Morris accepted an invitation to Petersburg, ere the angry pique, aroused by Lynn's reproaches, passed off. The promise was hardly given, when she would have revoked it, h...

It had been predicted from the premature beginning of the winter's gaieties, that an ebb would occur before the Southern carnival, Christmas, and the party-goers resolved to fal...

In a crowded school-room, on a glorious October morning, a student was penning, with slow and heavy fingers, an Italian exercise. A physiognomist's eye would have wandered with...

Richard was to take his sister home; and Ida was busily assisting her to pack her trunks, the day after the funeral, when Josephine sent to request an audience. She ordered the...

Yes! "Charley was Charley still!" The brothers were walking the piazza, Monday morning; and John's smile and Arthur's laugh applauded the quaint humor which came from his lips,...

Mr. Grant, wife and sister-in-law were "dear, nice old folks," who liked to see young people enjoy themselves, prim and staid 'though they were; and they had their fill of delig...

Life at Poplar-grove was much as it had been, the previous summer; still and bright. The mornings were spent in Carry's pleasant sewing-room, from which male visitors were rigor...

Two persons sat in the parlor of a handsome house situated in a pleasant street of the capital of our Old Dominion. The afternoon of a summer's day was deepening into twilight,...

Charley departed, and for several days, Ida disregarded his injunction of cheerfulness. She liked the warm-hearted, reliable Arthur; but she was unjust in her vexation at his ha...

The Sermon was over; the funeral psalm chanted brokenly, by reason of quick-drawn sobs, and bursts of tender remembrance; the heart's tribute to the memory of the departed. "The...

The stability of wedded happiness may be fairly tested in six years; and that number has elapsed since the wedding-eve at Sunnybank;--a month or two more--for hickory logs are h...