Averil

One lovely June afternoon Annette was sitting on the steps that led down from the veranda at Grey-Mount House. She was alone, and looked unusually pensive; indeed, there was a s...

"Oh, my mother, if thou could only see me now!" was Annette's inward ejaculation when the door closed upon her cousin; and as though this tender reflection had opened the flood-...

A very few minutes were sufficient for the inspection of Annette's scanty stock of clothes. Averil's eyes grew misty over the little pile of coarse, neatly mended linen; the wor...

Mr. Harland was one of those enviable persons who invariably take a cheerful view of everything; in the favorite parlance of the day, he was an optimist. A good digestion, an ea...

But the morning was not to pass without interruption. The young mistress of Redfern House was evidently a woman of business. First, a stout, comely looking woman demanded admitt...

"But no--why should I be tired?" returned the girl, in her pretty French accent, which he already found so charming. "Monsieur, what has there been to fatigue me? I have slept s...

"No one has done me so much good before. But, Annette, you must call me Averil. We are strangers no longer. We must be sisters to each other. Lottie, too; there is no need to ca...

Averil thought that hour the longest she had ever spent in her life; she was ready nearly half an hour before the time, and was sitting watching the minute hand of the clock, or...

Punctually at the appointed hour Mr. Harland stood before the dark little house in the Rue St. Joseph; but he had hardly touched the bell before the door opened, and Annette con...

Averil had just reached her own room when she remembered that she had not bidden Maud good-night. It was very late, and just for a moment she hesitated; then she crossed the pas...

One afternoon, about a fortnight after Averil Willmot had paid her visit to Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Harland stood on the deck of the small steamer in the gay port of Dinan, looking w...

Averil was rather quiet and subdued the next day or two, but as usual she battled bravely with her depression, and tried not to damp the enjoyment of her two young companions.

"They say there is good in every one," observed Frank, sententiously, looking round a little patronizingly on his listeners. "There is often a touch of good in what seems most e...

Annette was an early riser; she had slept soundly in her new, luxurious bed, and awoke refreshed and full of energy. When she had dressed herself carefully, and had disposed of...

A long sloping piece of ground behind the two cottages had been laid out as a kitchen-garden. The trim condition of the beds, the neatly weeded paths, all bore traces of the Cor...

A few more weeks passed. The summer days flew merrily by for Annette and Lottie; and if, as time went on, Averil's hidden anxieties and secret watchfulness did not relax, and a...

"I am so glad of that, dearie," was Mother Midge's answer; and then Jemmy touched his old white hat to them, and again they drove through the still, dewy lanes. Averil leaned ba...

At their entrance into the dining-room Frank Harland found himself surrounded by a group of friends. As one of them addressed him, Annette, with much tact, slipped away with a s...

"Averil is never wanting in courage, but the worst of it is, her mind is stronger than her body, and that tells on her. Of course, when she spoke in that quiet, decided tone, th...

Mrs. Willmot never brooded silently over her wrongs; her feeble nature needed the relief of words; her outbursts of lamentation, of indignation, of maternal solicitude, were all...

The next hour passed quickly. Averil had her book, and Annette amused herself with looking out of the window. "How could one read," she thought, "when the sun was shining, and t...

The next two or three days passed quickly and pleasantly to Annette; "the dear Fairy Order," as Lottie had called her playfully, during their first morning's work together, was...

As Averil asked this question in her usual quiet manner, her step-mother's perturbation increased; she was brought face to face with an unexpected difficulty--and Mrs. Willmot h...

Averil was somewhat surprised when, two hours later, Frank Harland made his appearance. His father had a touch of the gout, he explained. He had come in his stead to offer his s...