An Act in a Backwater

They drove quietly through the dusty, sultry streets, and came in a few minutes to Lammermoor. Mrs. Raymond conversed all the time in a low, monotonous voice, like the tones of...

A brilliant June sun lay sparkling on tree and tower and over the roofs of Wroxton and the downs which rise above the city. The morning might have been ordered, like the wedding...

Jack Collingwood came to pay his expected visit to Wroxton early in September, as soon as his father and mother were back from their annual trip to the English Lakes. Canon Coll...

Jack Collingwood started from London next morning, before the arrival of his mother’s letter, and travelled with only a Saturday-till-Monday bag as representing the necessaries...

The weeks that followed were the most terrible and most wearing that Jeannie had ever known. During the first day or two she showed a real aptitude for her work; she was gentle,...

Jeannie threw herself into the life of the place with amazing energy, and she had her hands very full. In the first place, the house in Bolton Street had a new inhabitant--none...

Jeannie was standing on the first tee of the Wroxton golf links, doing what is technically known as addressing her ball. In other words, her driver was moving spasmodically back...

“I was just coming down, Miss Avesham,” she said; “I should have come down before, but I just waited to collect myself. Now, please tell me truly. Dr. Maitland, I thought, looke...

It was approaching half-past five on a June afternoon, and in consequence Colonel Raymond was approaching the Wroxton County Club. He was a man of method, and a retired Colonel...

The Avesham family manner of attending Cathedral was characteristic. Miss Fortescue was always the first to start, and she reached her seat in the choir five minutes before serv...

One evening, about a fortnight after the attack of congestion in Bolton Street, Canon and Mrs. Collingwood were sitting in their dining-room lingering over their dessert. The bu...

“A little military society is so pleasant, is it not?” said Miss Clifford. “That you will find is one of the great advantages of Wroxton, Miss Avesham. We have so many factors i...

Long-continued drought had marked this summer-time, and when in September no rain fell the papers had been full of acrimonious comments on the ways of water-companies. The water...

In spite of the Colonel’s settled belief to the contrary, it was perfectly true that, only a few months before his noble relative’s death, Lord Avesham had bought for Arthur, hi...

Phœbe had not been very kind when she heard that her sister had been so bold-faced, as she called it, to ask Jack Collingwood for a sketch. “You don’t know what interpretation m...

The Aveshams always had coffee, when it was fine, under the mulberry-tree, the fruits of which were destined to make the g--n, as Mrs. Collingwood would have preferred to expres...

A fortnight later Jeannie, Miss Fortescue, and Arthur were all staying at the Black Eagle Hotel, employed in settling in. Morton had been let, but let unfurnished, and in order...

Before another week was over the fresh cases of typhoid had ceased. During the three days immediately following the thunder-storm rain had fallen again and again, heavily and al...

That prodigious observer had not failed to notice them, and though Arthur’s interview with him had been quite remarkably frank and outspoken, the Colonel was not to be taken in...

Three days after this the picture exhibition opened, and Jeannie and Miss Fortescue, as they strolled out one morning, passed the Guildhall, where placards were up saying that t...

some ways. He can’t bear that any one should hear anything before he knows it himself, and naturally he would feel it more if I knew something about you particularly before he d...