Amaryllis at the Fair

They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path passed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the strawberry patch which Iden had planted un...

There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very bush. There are many grand roses, b...

He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams, letters, and newspapers.

WHEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake descent in Iden's face she alluded to Grandfather Iden's being a baker and miller, and noted for the manufacture of these articles. A lardy,...

Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the clumsy people should over-turn him,...

THOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often twice a day, to her flowers to pray.

"No such wall as that anywhere about here," said Iden, as proud of his wall as his ale. "No such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to put up a wall now--you read in the pape...

"FORTY-FOLDS," went on the master, "be the best keeping potatoes. Thur be so many new sorts now, but they bean't no good; they be very good for gentlefolk as doan't know no bett...

SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house, and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if there had been they could not have...

SOMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's brain, lies somewhere thereabouts....

LADY-DAY Fair came round by and by, and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock in the morning, went down the garden to the end of the orchard, where she could overlook the highway with...

THE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was moving. They were going to the fai...

One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to talk to her in his perky, affected...

OLD Grandfather Iden always dined alone in the parlour, with his housekeeper to wait on him; they were just bringing in his food. The family and visitors had their meals in a se...

TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation; her young brow bent; her eyes cast d...

BY no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat. The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners--those great institutions of the day--w...

"What has he been talking to you about?" she said, angrily. "Don't listen to him. He will never do any good. Just look at his coat; it's a disgrace, a positive disgrace. Telling...

THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma, with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of May; till "a month passed away," an...

THIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make, had lost an arm--the screw remained sticking up, but the woodwork on that side was gone. It had been accidentally broken some ten years si...

HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened that slumber was induced by the position in which he placed himself; slumber, however, was not his intent....

Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular preserve of the Pamments was Grand...

So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to be snapped up if she s...

RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her thinking-room, her private chapel and p...

Of a summer's eve, when the day's work among the hot hay was done, Iden would often go out and sit under the russet apple till the dew had filled the grass like a green sea. Whe...

THERE was one peculiarity in all the books on Grandfather Iden's shelves, they were all very finely bound in the best style of hand-art, and they all bore somewhere or other a l...

"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje. The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in the morning, and still there was th...

BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign foot, the very poker had been touch...

SOME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and are alluded to as Benefactors of...

WITHIN there was a gravel path, and glimpses between trees of wide pleasure-grounds. Amaryllis hesitated, and looked back; Iden drew her forward, not noticing her evident disinc...

"That I should have been such a fool--an infernal blockheaded fool--" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a clang--"muddle-headed fool--I'll never touch a drop of whi...

PERHAPS the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree, he could not make believe--could not de...

STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to the door, the thump, thump with the fis...

"YOU must drink it all--every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but half finished it; she insisted, "Come...

A PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace something--a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there; the crank came round and crushed h...