An English Squire

Some few years ago Mr Gerald Lester was the head of a family of good blood and position, and the owner of Oakby Hall, the great house of a village of the same name in the county...

Some six or seven and twenty years before the date when his sons were thus discussing their elder brother's arrival, Gerald Lester, then a young man fresh from college, had been...

Alvar Lester was coming home; but his image was so complete a blank to his brothers, that they could form no idea as to how it would become them to receive him. Jack, after ling...

It was late on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. The hall at Oakby was full of branches of holly and ivy. Nettie, perched on the top of an oak cabinet, was sticking sprays into th...

In the midst of a waste of unswept snow across the hill behind Oakby Hall, there was a large old house, originally of something the same square and substantial type, but of more...

The vicar of Elderthwaite was Mr Seyton's youngest brother. There had been one between them, the father of the Ruth mentioned in the last chapter, but he had married well, and d...

Christmas is no doubt, theoretically, the right season for relations who have been long parted to meet, and there was an ideal appropriateness in the long absent heir appearing...

On the third Sunday morning after Alvar's arrival, Mr Lester came down as usual at the sound of the gong, and as he glanced round the dining-room missed his two elder sons.

There was a little oak-panelled bedroom at Elderthwaite, which had been called Ruth's ever since, as a curly-haired, brown-skinned child, the little orphan cousin had come from...

Perhaps no amount of angry opposition to her wishes could so have perplexed Virginia as her uncle's _nonchalance_, which, whether cynical or genial, seemed to remove him from th...

The rain had ceased, and long pale rays of sunshine were streaming through the mist as Cheriton made his way through a very dilapidated turnstile and across a footpath much in n...

That week of gaiety, so unusual to Oakby, was fraught with great results. The dim and beautiful dream of the future which had grown with Cheriton Lester's growth became a defini...

The hill that lay between Oakby and Elderthwaite was partly covered by a thick plantation of larches, through which passed a narrow footpath. In the summer, when the short turf...

There was the shadow of such a thought on the blushing face of Virginia Seyton as she sat in a great chair in the old drawing-room at Elderthwaite and listened to the wooing of...

In that year Easter fell very late, and it was nearly the end of April before the Lesters gathered together once more at Oakby. Alvar and Virginia had hardly had time to grow ac...

There was hardly a lonelier spot in all the country round than the little Black Tarn. The hill in which it lay possessed neither the rocky grandeur nor the fertile beauty of the...

In the June following the expedition to Black Tarn, some great festivities were held in honour of the coming of age of a young nobleman, who possessed a large property about fif...

On that same hot summer night, when Ruth and Rupert were first making each other miserable, and then finding out separately that they were very miserable themselves, Cheriton, w...

Perhaps it was well for the permanence of Cheriton's new-born happiness that he had but a very short glimpse of Ruth. The next morning, the Oakby party started early, that Mr Le...

In the early days of August, after as long a delay as she could find excuse for, Ruth Seyton returned to Elderthwaite, knowing that Rupert was to come next week to Oakby for the...

In the meantime the unconscious Rupert was strolling up and down in front of the house waiting for his uncle to come out, and intending to take him into his confidence and ask f...

It was a wild, wet morning, some days after the Oakby dinner-party. Summer weather was apt in those regions to be invaded in August by something very like autumn; bits of brown...

A few days before Alvar's interview with his father, Rupert had left Oakby to make his personal application to Ruth Seyton's guardians, backed up by a letter from Mr Lester, and...

One chilly morning, a week or so after these events, Virginia was sitting in the drawing-room, with a heap of patterns in her lap. She was choosing her wedding gown, and as she...

"O near ones, dear ones! you in whose right hands Our own rests calm, whose faithful hearts all day, Wide open, wait till back from distant lands Thought, the tired traveller, w...

"So, papa, here we are, off at last! I can hardly believe it, and nothing left behind! Isn't it delightful? Such lovely weather and so many people! I wish we were going to India...

At Gibraltar the new acquaintances parted, and Mr Stanforth and his daughter went at once to join their friends at San Jose, with many hopes expressed of soon meeting at Seville...

The Lesters had finally settled to go to Cadiz by sea, and thence by rail to Seville, again breaking their journey at Xeres. The Stanforths were making the journey across countr...

One of Alvar's first occupations was to find a lodging for the Stanforths, and for one of the Miss Westons, whom they brought with them, and he succeeded in obtaining a flat in...

After the departure of the travellers, a period of exceeding flatness and dulness settled down on Oakby and its neighbourhood. The weather was dismal, one or two other neighbour...

Virginia, when she parted from Jack, walked slowly homewards through the mist and the falling leaves, and thought of the bloom and the brightness of that fair Seville which she...

"I wonder if the spring-tide of this year Will bring another spring both lost and dear; If heart and spirit will find out their spring, Or if the world _alone_ will bud and sing."

"I tell you, you stupid, blundering blockheads, that he _is_ my brother; and we _are_ Englishmen, and we know nothing whatever of your Carlist brigands, or whoever they are! We...

That same morning, when Jack and Alvar had ridden hurriedly up to the hotel, looking eagerly to catch sight of those who were so anxiously watching for them, their eyes fell on...

way; but whatever may take place in the future I can allow no intercourse till your father's consent is obtained. That will give a chance of testing their feelings on both sides...

After Jack returned home, with the understanding that the disclosure of his holiday occupation should await his brother's return, and after the Stanforths had also left Seville,...

It was on a wild March morning, when sudden gleams of radiant sunlight contended with heavy storm-clouds, that Mr Lester of Oakby was buried. There was no rain, but the violent...

By the next morning Cheriton's thoughts had cleared themselves, and matters began to take some shape; he could make up his mind to a certain line of conduct, or at least could p...

Virginia Seyton had spent her Christmas at Littleton, and after returning to London for her cousin Ruth's marriage, had come home again at the end of January. At Littleton, more...

There are few places where the charm of a bright June day is felt more perfectly than in a London garden. The force of contrast may partly account for this; but The Laurels, as...

Soon after the scenes recorded in the last chapter, Alvar received a letter from Mrs Lester, in which she thanked him, in a dignified and cordial manner, for his proposal that t...

In the first week of September Jack came home, and Bob also came over from Ashrigg to assist in demolishing the partridges. The empty, lonely house affected the spirits of the t...

Cheriton had encountered greater sorrows, he had met with more startling disappointments, but never, perhaps, had he endured such a complication of feeling as when he turned awa...

Alvar, having avoided his brothers after dinner, came back into the hall, and, sitting down by the fire, lighted a cigarette. As he sat there in the great chair by himself, the...

"Will you ask Mr Lester to come to me before he goes to Hazelby?" he said, not feeling quite able to satisfy himself that Alvar had all the needful evidence clear in his head.

The speaker was Miss Seyton. She stood looking down at her niece with an odd quiver in lip and voice, even while her tone was not altogether a sad one. Virginia sat in dismayed...

Early the next morning Virginia received a letter from Alvar, written at intervals during his night watch in Cheriton's room. Perhaps it was the first real communication she had...

It was a bright morning just before Whitsuntide in the ensuing year, when the bluebells were still adorning the Elderthwaite plantations, and the ivy on the church was fresh wit...