Beechcroft at Rockstone

In the search for a new abode Mrs. Lee was in much difficulty, for it was needful to be near St. Kenelm’s, and the only vacant houses within her means were not desirable for the...

Clipston was to be repaired and put in order, to be rented by the Merrifields. It was really a fine old substantial squire’s house, though neglected and consigned to farmers for...

A telegram had been received in the morning, which kept Valetta and Fergus on the qui vive all day. Valetta was an unspeakable worry to the patient Miss Vincent, and Fergus arra...

Events came on rapidly that spring. Mr. White was anxious that his marriage should take place quickly--afraid, perhaps, that his prize would escape him, and be daunted by the pa...

‘Well, now for the second stage of our guardianship!’ said Aunt Ada, as the two sisters sat over the fire after Valetta had gone to bed. ‘Fergus comes back to-morrow, and Gillia...

On an east-windy Friday afternoon Valetta and Fergus were in a crowning state of ecstasy. Rigdum Funnidos was in a hutch in the small garden under the cliff, Begum and two small...

Gillian was not yet seventeen, and had lived a home life totally removed from gossip, so that she had no notion that she was doing a more awkward or remarkable thing than if she...

If Fergus had not yet discovered the secret of perpetual motion, Gillian felt as if Aunt Jane had done so, and moreover that the greater proportion of parish matters were one va...

Dr. Dagger examined Mrs. White and pronounced that there had been mortal disease of long standing, and that she had nearly, if not quite, reached the last stage. While people ha...

Examinations were the great autumn excitement. Gillian was going up for the higher Cambridge, and Valetta’s form was under preparation for competition for a prize in languages....

Miss Mohun came back in the dark after a long day, for once in her life quite jaded, and explaining that the health-officer and the landlord had been by no means agreed, and tha...

‘A telegram! Make haste and open it, Jane; they always make me so nervous! I believe that is the reason Reginald always _will_ telegraph when he is coming,’ said Miss Adeline Mo...

‘MY DEAR MAMMA--I wish you a merry Christmas, and papa and sisters and Claude too. I only hooped once to-day, and Nurse says I may go out when it gets fine. Fly is better. She s...

The actual moment of a parting is often softened by the confusion of departure. That of the Merrifield family took place at the junction, where Lady Merrifield with her brother...

Lord Rotherwood came in to try to wile his cousin to share in the survey of the country; but she declared it to be impossible, as all her avocations had fallen into arrear, and...

The High School was very large. It stood at present at the end of a budding branch of Rockquay, where the managers, assisted by the funds advanced by Lord Rotherwood and that gr...

The telegram came early on Monday morning. Admiral Merrifield and Harry started by the earliest train, deciding not to take the girls; whereupon their kind host, to mitigate the...

On Sunday, Gillian’s feet found their way to the top of the garden, where she paced meditatively up and down, hoping to see Kalliope; and just as she was giving up the expectati...

Without exactly practising to deceive, Gillian began to find that concealment involved her in a tangled web; all the more since Aunt Jane had become thoroughly interested in the...

There had been no injunctions of secrecy, and though neither Miss Mohun nor Gillian had publicly mentioned the subject, all Rockquay who cared for the news knew by Sunday mornin...

The expected telegram arrived two days later, requesting Miss Mohun to find a lodging at Rockstone sufficient to contain Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield, and a certain amount of...

Six weeks seem a great deal longer to sixteen than to six-and-forty, and Gillian groaned and sighed to herself as she wrote her letters, and assured herself that so far from her...

It seemed to be a very long time before the inquest was over, and Aunt Jane had almost yielded to her niece’s impatience and her own, and consented to walk down to meet the inte...

The wedding was imminent by this time. The sisters returned from London, the younger looking brilliant and in unusual health, and the elder fagged and weary. Shopping, or rather...