Bessy Rane: A Novel

Mr. North, now of Dallory Sail, had got on entirely by his own industry. Of obscure, though in a certain way respectable, parentage, he had been placed as apprentice to a firm i...

Many years before, when the Reverend George Cumberland held his chaplaincy in Madras, there were two friends also there with whom he was intimate--Major Bohun and Mr. Adair. The...

It was an intensely dark night. What with the mist that hung around from below, and the unusual gloom above, Dr. Rane began to think he might have done well to bring a lantern w...

Jelly--to whom we are obliged to refer rather frequently, as she holds some important threads of the story in her hands--found times went very hard with her. A death within the...

Seven o'clock was striking out on a dark winter's night, as a hired carriage with a pair of post-horses drew up near to the gates of Dallory Hall. Apparently the special hour ha...

A well-spread dessert-table glittered under the rays of the chandelier in the dining-room of Sir Nash Bohun's town-house. Sir Nash and his nephew Arthur were seated at it, a gue...

Early on the following morning the death-bell ringing out from the church at Dallory proclaimed to those who heard it that Edmund North had passed to his rest. He had never reco...

At the front-parlour window at Eastsea, sat Ellen Adair--looking for one who did not come. Whatever troubles, trials, mysteries might be passing elsewhere, Eastsea was going thr...

As yet it had been confined to the poor. To those who for some months now had been living in despair and poverty. Some called it a famine fever; some a relapsing fever; some typ...

Whitborough was a good-sized, bustling town, sending two members to parliament. In the heart of it lived Mr. Dale, the lawyer, who did a little in money-lending as well. He was...

with the bare floors and walls, a staring appearance to the place. Mrs. Cumberland's opposite landing (could you have seen it) presented a very different aspect, with its rich c...

It was a warm and sunny day in Dallory. Mrs. Gass threw open her window and sat behind the geraniums enjoying the sunshine, exchanging salutations and gossip with as many of her...

There was commotion that day in Dallory. An offer such as this of Richard North's, coming as it did in the very midst of distress and prolonged privation, could not be rejected...

For a wonder, the dinner-table at Dallory Hall included only the family-party. Madam headed it; Mr. North was at the foot; Richard on one side; Matilda on the other. Scarcely a...

There was trouble amongst the Dallory workpeople. It had been looming in the distance for some time before it came. No works throughout the kingdom had been more successfully ca...

Tontines may be of different arrangement. In fact they are so. This one was as follows. It had been instituted at Whitborough. Ten gentlemen put each an equal sum into a common...

In Mrs. Gass's comfortable dining-room, securely ensconced behind the closed blinds, drawn to-day, sat that lady and a visitor. It was the day of the funeral of Edmund North; an...

"It was too true; Mrs. Rane was dead," said sympathizing people one to the other; for even that same night the sad tidings went partially out to Dallory. What with the death of...

It was a curious position, that of some of the present inmates of Dallory Hall. Sir Nash Bohun, who went down to accompany Arthur more than anything else, and who had not intend...

When rumours of this grave character arise, they do not come suddenly to a climax. Time must be given them to grow and settle down. It came at length, however, here. Doubts ripe...

Affairs grew more unsatisfactory at Dallory as the weeks went on. The strike continued; the men utterly refusing to return to work except on their own terms, or, rather, the Tra...

Bessy Rane sat at the large window of her dining-room in the coming twilight. Some twelve months had elapsed since her marriage, and summer was round again. Her work had dropped...

The day promised to be as warm as the preceding one. The night and morning mists were gone; the sun shone hot and bright. Summer seemed to have come in before its time.

The two guests, Sir Nash Bohun and his son, were departing from Dallory Hall. They had arrived the previous afternoon in time to attend the funeral, had dined and slept there, a...

By twos and threes, by fours and fives and tens, the curious and excited groups were wending their way towards Dallory churchyard. For a certain work was going on there, which h...

The days went on, and Dr. Rane's house was being made ready for the reception of the bride. No time could be lost, as the wedding tour was intended to be so short a one. As Jell...

The tide came rippling up on the sea-shore with a monotonous, soothing murmur. There were no waves to-day; the air was densely still; but in the western sky little black clouds...

Morning, noon and night, whenever the small body of fresh workmen had to pass to and from the works, they were accompanied by the two policemen specially engaged to protect them...

The summer was slowly passing. At a small and obscure seaside place on the East coast Mrs. Cumberland was located. She had engaged part of one of the few good houses there--hous...

The guests waited in the drawing-room. Madam, with gracious suavity, was bestowing her smiles on all, after her manner in society, her white silk dress gleaming with richness. A...

Jelly lived, so to say, on a volcano. She felt that, figuratively speaking, there was not an hour of the day or night but she might be blown into fragments. The rumours as to th...

A dinner-party at Dallory Hall. Arthur Bohun was in his chamber, lazily dressing for it. Not a large party, this: half-a-dozen people or so, besides themselves; and the hour six...

A fine morning in June. Lovely June; with its bright blue skies and its summer flowers. Walking about amidst his rose-trees, was Mr. North, a rake in his hand. He fancied he was...

Apparently Dr. Rane found nothing on his conscience that could present an impediment, and the preparation for the wedding went quietly on. Secretly might almost be the better wo...

In the dining-room at Mrs. Cumberland's, with its window open to the garden and the sweet flowers, stood Ellen Adair. It was the favourite morning-room. Mrs. Cumberland, down in...

With the same rapidity that the sickness had appeared, so did it subside in Dallory. Mrs. Rane's was the last serious case: the last death; the very few cases afterwards were of...

A crafty and worldly-wise woman, like Mrs. North, can change her tactics as readily as the wind changes its quarters. The avowal of Richard, that he was the master of Dallory Ha...

Time went on again; nearly a fortnight. Dallory had relapsed into its old routine; the fever was forgotten. Houses had recovered from the aroma of soap and scrubbing: their inha...

"You are keeping quality hours, Bessy--as our nurse used to say when we were children," was Richard North's salutation to his sister as he went in and saw the table laid for bre...

Seated on a lawn-bench at Dallory Hall in the sweet spring sunshine--for the time has again gone on--was Ellen Adair. Sir William Adair and Arthur Bohun were pacing amidst the f...

Dallory, as regards North Inlet, was no longer crowded. The poor workmen, with their wives and families, had for the most part drifted away from it; some few were emigrating, so...

Dashing up to Dallory Hall, just a week and a day after the wedding, came Mrs. North. Madam had learnt the news. Whilst she was reposing in all security in Paris, amidst a knot...

When Arthur Bohun rose the next morning, his senses had returned to him. That Ellen Adair's love was his, and that no fear existed of her accepting any other man, let him be pri...

A few skulkers had gathered behind the dwarf hedge, that skirted the piece of waste land near the North Works. An ill-looking set of men, as seen at present: for they had knelt...

Nothing of late years had affected Mr. North so much as the death of Bessy Rane. His son Edmund's death, surrounded by all the doubt and trouble connected with the anonymous let...

Wintry weather set in again. The past few days had been intensely cold and bleak. Ellen Adair sat in one of her favourite outdoor seats. Sheltered from the wind by artificial ro...

Pacing the shrubbery walk at Dallory Hall, a grey woollen shawl wrapped closely round her flowing black silk dress, her pale, sweet, sad face turned up to the lowering sky, was...

Reclining on the pillows of an invalid chair was Arthur Bohun, looking as yellow as gold, recovering from an attack of jaundice. The day of James Bohun's funeral it had poured w...

She lay back in an easy-chair, in the little room that was once Mr. North's parlour. The window was thrown open to the sweet flowers, the balmy air; and Ellen Adair drank in the...

Oliver Rane was in his bedchamber; a front apartment facing the road. It will be as well to give a word of description to this first floor, for it may prove needed as the tale g...