Bertha's engagement

The young girl, who had just refused the most ardent love that man ever offered to woman, turned her horse half around, and looked with earnest sympathy into that handsome face.

Bertha was insensible. A deadly sickness seized upon her when she felt the horse slipping helplessly down to the roaring waters, that seemed to clamor like famished wild beasts...

All night long the rush and roar of heaving waters filled that old farm-house. The two young girls, who were guests for the time, awoke now and then with a thrill of remembrance...

About halfway between the old mill and the village in which Clara Anderson lived, stood an old-fashioned stone tavern, with a square stoop in front, a heavy stone chimney on the...

Lane also sat despondently by a table. His share in the night’s revel had fallen short of oblivion, and he still felt keenly. He had thrown off his assumed gayety the moment his...

Clara Anderson, with Fletcher by her side, rode up to the old house which was her home with a clouded face. It was like the return of a bird, that had broken loose for a time, t...

The few pleasant days that Clara Anderson had spent with her school-mates would have brightened her isolated life a little, but for the reflection that such days would seldom, i...

Clara Anderson was aroused from the pleasant reverie into which she had fallen by the slow clatter of her grandmother’s cane on the floor. Hurriedly snatching up her work, she b...

The Judge looked at Clara aghast. He had only been upholding the dignity of his family; he had not meant to wound her more than was necessary to impress the social fact upon her...

Clara let her work fall as she rose slowly from her seat. Pride like iron kept her from betraying any physical weakness, although the room reeled around her and she clutched the...

It may be the fashion to rave over the White Mountains, and that stupendous pass in the Alleghenies through which the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad runs like a skeleton’s highway...

Old Mrs. Anderson’s house stood on the outskirts of the village, half a mile or so before you come to the bridge. Waldon was riding leisurely along the road, resolved to pass th...

Old Mrs. Anderson was feeling her infirmities more than usual in those days, and kept her bed most of the time. She understood, in a vague way, that some gentleman who knew Edwa...

In those days Clara Anderson found her sweetest companionship with nature. Too delicate and sensitive for the confidences that most girls love, she carried her happiness into th...

Lydia Rowe—the girl had a second name, though it was seldom used—was permitted to remain with the Andersons, because of the sympathy felt at the farm-house by the old mill, for...

Cold-blooded calculation was no portion of Waldon’s character. In order to make him treacherous there must be some appeal to his passions. Full of poetic sentiment, he was void...

The river ran close up to Mrs. Vose’s garden, and could be seen from the back windows of her house creeping through the hemlock shadows that clothed the opposite banks. Here it...

The insatiable vanity of Waldon was appeased by the concession of love that Clara had made. Then worldly reasoning came in to check his ardor and minister to his selfishness. Wh...

Ah! how different were the thoughts of Clara Anderson from this! All that night, after a sweet confession of love had escaped her lips, as burning carnation-flowers give their h...

Two young girls stood together on the deck of a steamboat which was just preparing to leave far New York. One was speaking eagerly, as she clung to her taller and more stately c...

Bertha Canfield seemed to bring the glow and business of a bright outside world into the room where her mother was sitting when she came home. You never would have believed that...

In New York, where Russell Waldon was the centre of a choice intellectual circle, he was in the habit of giving bachelor parties such as the authors and artists of Old England h...

Bertha was untying her riding-hat and taking off her gauntlets as she spoke, while the shadowy woman hovered around her with the loving solicitude of a heart always apprehensive...

Back of that old farm-house was a peach orchard now in full fruit, under which the grass grew thicker and greener than it could be found in less shady places. This turf was alwa...

It was true; Clara Anderson had changed greatly, both in person and mind, since Waldon had so unaccountably ceased to visit the old house. Soul and body she was in constant anta...

“I’ll have everything splendid; never you fear,” he said. “I’ll dress the dug-out like the Fourth of July. You and Nancy may stand on the bank and see us float. It’ll be somethi...

“I have accepted Mr. Waldon’s invitation to ride to the upper falls to-morrow morning. It is understood that you will join us somewhere on the way. This gives me an opportunity...

Bertha slept. The nervous shock had passed off, and she was dreaming of a water-fall where every drop of spray broke in music as it fell to the earth; but all at once the smile...

Clara Anderson left the Stone Tavern and was going blindly toward her horse when she felt the clatter of a pair of hoofs almost over her head, and, looking up, saw that a horse...

Clara Anderson went slowly across the garden, staggering as she walked. With difficulty she mounted her horse in the shed where he had been left, and rode away. She had no knowl...

Bertha Canfield came into her mothers room fresh from the most elaborate toilet she had ever made in her life. Her dress of amber-colored silk, softened and subdued by an over-c...

Mrs. Farnsworth lived sufficiently out of New York to call her home a “villa,” and the acre or two that surrounded it “grounds.” Both the house and all its surroundings were thi...

Ever since the return of Mrs. Canfield to her home in New York, Lydia had been surprised to find a bouquet of newly cut flowers just within the door each morning. Asking no ques...

Not a word had been said between Bertha and Waldon about meeting in the park at any time. But in his careless, poetic way, he had spoken of its greenness and luxuriant beauty, d...

All this time Clara Anderson lived on smitten by the miasma of that growing slander. Her work fell off, and she did not know why. The few friends that visited her grandmother se...

Clara Anderson had taken a long walk that day. She had plenty of leisure, for work, which had come in more and more slowly, was withheld now altogether, and but for the cunning...

After a time Clara went to her grandmother’s room. The old lady was still on the bed, very pale and weak, but her eyes were bright and keen as steel, when the girl approached he...

Clara opened the parlor door and walked in, expecting to find the minister, but instead of that she found herself face to face with Edward Lane. She had prepared herself to meet...

Clara read this bitter news, every word of it, as men drink poison or women kiss their rivals, with smothered loathing. Before it had been an apprehension which she had put asid...

Great as was the curiosity, even consternation, in the village when that old lady passed out of it, the feeling was nothing in comparison with the effect produced on the two men...

“She loved me: people thought her cross; but she was only old and so good at heart. It was to-day that she kissed me. Dear old grandmother, she wasn’t given to many caresses, an...

The fashionable season set in early that year, and Bertha Canfield, whose engagement was yet unknown, except to young Lane, was taken everywhere by Mrs. Wilson Forbes, a married...

Wilson Forbes was a studious man, and his wife found him in the library, bending over a book, quite forgetful that the clock had struck two. He looked up as the lady entered, an...

The library in which Russell Waldon sat, the next morning after his unpleasant interview with Mrs. Forbes, was like the man himself, a splendid incongruity. The shelves of those...

Bertha entered the parlor with hesitation, yet the man waiting so anxiously there had saved her life, and, in the first flush of her gratitude, might have been her plighted husb...

It was over—painful as the interview had been, it was over. The one apprehension which had marred Bertha’s perfect happiness was swept away in the little half hour that left Fle...

The conservatory in which those two lovely women stood was a perfect arch of rolling glass, lifted so high that the golden-haired acacias, and fruit-laden orange trees, grew alm...

There was considerable excitement in high fashionable circles when it became generally known that Waldon, their pet and idol, was engaged to Bertha Canfield. Popular and beautif...

“I take up my pen hoping that you are well and enjoying good health, which I am, with Nancy and the rest—all sending love but myself, which is respects. Miss Liddy, the reason o...

The bell slowly swaying in that high steeple rung out the solemn announcement that the oldest inhabitant of the village was lying dead in that brown house, with moss on the roof...

A large stone mansion, covering much ground, built before the Revolution, but modernized by French windows opening upon broad verandas, balconies, with stone steps, leading down...

A tent was erected on the highest swell of Diamond Island, and a little group of hampers lay half buried in the tall grass around a spring, where a squad of champagne bottles wa...

The party broke up, brilliant with fun, and but half subdued by the merriment of the day. A boat full of household servants, hampers, and well-worn musical instruments, had alre...

Waldon slept at Willow Bend that night—have I told you that such was the name of Mr. Noel’s place—and stayed there a day or two, loitering around the verandas in snow-white garm...

Waldon was always suave and courteous with Bertha’s mother, who regarded him from the first with sensitive reserve, which he had mistaken for the awe which his genius imposed on...

Mrs. Canfield got up from the couch, tottered across the floor, and looked into the next room, to see if Lydia was there. She came creeping bock, white and shadowy like a ghost,...

Mrs. Canfield leaned back exhausted, her eyes closed, her face trembling all over, while Waldon sat with a bar of sunlight striking through the blinds across his face, through w...

After a while Bertha came indoors and ran up to her mother’s room, a little curious to know why Waldon had been summoned to it. Had her mother at last relented? Was the time arr...

A great willow threw its fountain of leaves over them and the grass around its roots was blue with violets, which breathed a delicious perfume as Bertha plucked them one by one,...

An old lady hovered with unusual impatience around the front door of that low-roofed farm-house, waiting for her only child, who had never crossed its threshold without a welcom...

The old friend and his wife moved about their house, during the next week, as if some person at the point of death lay in the chamber Mrs. Canfield occupied. Yet she was not rea...

Once more Mrs. Canfield questioned her daughter, and again Bertha declared, with rising impatience, that she loved Waldon with all her soul, and nothing on earth should ever sep...

Lydia was in the room, moving restlessly about. Sometimes this faithful creature grew tyrannical with her mistress, and out of the depths of a great love scolded her with affect...

Stunned almost into insensibility, Lydia had fallen across the bed as that glass left her hand. Lying there helplessly, with her eyes fixed upon the open orbs that looked so ici...

Waldon still remained at Willow Bend: for, though he was nominally the guest of young Hyde, half his days were spent at the Noel mansion. Occasionally Mary observed signs of glo...

Down in that New England valley was an old-fashioned meeting-house, with a low steeple—a timid imitation of the Episcopal churches which, for a long time, were the only places o...

One hope kept Bertha from sinking under her passionate grief. She could take no comfort from the subdued sorrow of her grandparents, who had learned how to suffer and be still....

Mrs. Wilson Forbes was preparing to go South. Her brother Egbert had written so feelingly of his loneliness, and with such general depression, that her kind heart was seized wit...

Diamond Island, on which Mary Noel had given her picnic, belonged to an estate which young Fletcher had inherited from his grandfather. Upon it was a comfortable old house, buil...

“I am here, Miss B., and have been all the time,” said Lydia, coming out from behind the muslin curtains of a window sunk deep into the wall, through which she had been anxiousl...

For a moment Waldon was beside himself—all the broad lands of Willow Bend, the mansion gleaming with lights, and the girl who could make him master of them, were nothing to him....

“Indeed, Egbert, I shall insist upon going. The Noels have been old friends of our family for ages, and I have a particular desire to know this young girl, who was only a pretty...

The guests assembled rapidly now, and dinner was announced. Mr. Noel led Mrs. Forbes to the table. Waldon followed with Miss Noel on his arm. The rest came independently; being...

“And so did Mary Noel; but she evidently knows nothing, and is, beside, a precious little goose! I wonder a girl all puff and gossamer, like that, could have been your bosom fri...

As Mrs. Wilson Forbes was driving home, very much dissatisfied with herself, she saw a young lady, followed by a colored groom, galloping down the river road, with a swift speed...

Bertha had borne up bravely, and defended Waldon to her friend, even when her own heart was giving way from its unswerving faith in the man she loved. No excuse could be found,...

It will be remembered that Mr. Noel was forced by indisposition to leave his guests at the dinner table, on the night that ended in such bitter feeling between the parties left...

Mrs. Forbes had not observed the look of dead apathy on that locked face when she entered Bertha’s chamber, for the blinds were almost closed, and the girl did not rise to recei...

It stormed heavily that night. The rain drifted across Diamond Island in sheets. The great trees swayed and bent under whirling rushes of wind, that threatened to uproot them. T...

Lydia also leaped on shore, with the cable in her hand; she groped for a hook which she knew of, sunk into one of the willows, fastened her boat, and ran swiftly across the lawn...

Mrs. Wilson Forbes had faith in Bertha, and went home comforted; but when she saw her brother so grave and calm, preparing for an event which might separate them forever, her co...

Early in the morning, Mrs. Forbes rode furiously down to the banks of the river opposite Diamond Island. She found no boat on the shore, and looked wildly up and down for some m...

The ground had been measured. A doctor was in waiting. One of the seconds held a white handkerchief in his hand. It dropped. That instant a female figure darted up from the spri...

Truly Russell Waldon was a good shot. His bullet had gone so close to that brave, true heart that the variation of the smallest portion of an inch would have cleft it. After tha...

Bertha Canfield sunk to a chair by the sick man’s bed, and dropped the lilies into her lap, utterly dismayed. For the first time in many a weary day her face was bathed in blush...

Weeks went by. Egbert Fletcher gained strength every hour. The perfect stillness of the island, the bright, pure atmosphere, and, above all, the presence of those devoted women,...

Old Sam came to him, rather late in the morning, with a letter or two and some papers which he had brought from the post-office. In the parcel was a New York journal, directed i...

Clara Anderson had resolved to return to her friends at Richmond as soon as Egbert Fletcher could be removed from the island. Bertha was safe under the protection of Mrs. Forbes...

Diamond Island was deserted. Old Sam and Celia were once more left alone. The wounded man had been taken home. There was no reason now why Bertha should remain in that lonely pl...

Diamond Island was running over with joyous life that day. Tables of rough boards were arranged in the form of a horse-shoe around that open space of forest turf just within the...

“You remember, Miss Bertha, when I came into your kitchen, so hungry, and shivering with cold. _She_ came down, and saw me sitting there, with a bundle in my lap, trembling, for...

A year had passed—more than a year—for violets were out on the river banks, and lilac flowers were budding around that New England farm-house in which Bertha Canfield was to be...