Beth's wonder-winter

“Beth Bristead, did you tear--how did you tear your apron so?” demanded Beth’s aunt. She held up the accusing rent to explain the change in the form of her question; it left no...

Beth sat by the window in spotless order. Her hands were clasped in her lap; she was so still that her favorite doll, sitting stiffly opposite to her, seemed, by contrast, to be...

The cab stopped before a tall house, dressed in brown from head to foot. “It looks like Aunt Rebecca when she has on her brown mohair,” thought Beth, and the humorous resemblanc...

Beth and her aunt came home a little before three. Luncheon in a hotel restaurant, Pompeian red and bronze in coloring, with flowers on every table and ladies at every table, al...

Only on the first morning of her visit did Beth oversleep. The second morning she was up bright and early, so early that, with some misgiving of doing wrong, she had dressed bef...

“Oh, I do!” cried Beth. “I love to go to church. I like so very much to sing hymns. Sometimes I wish we could have hymns instead of a sermon, but Aunt Rebecca says that’s all wr...

The next morning Beth opened her eyes upon a chill gray world. She jumped out of bed and into her cuddly bedroom slippers and drew aside her window curtains. The asphalt pavemen...

“Oh, yes, I have; I tried it on the minute it came--the minute I got off my dress to go to bed the night it came,” Beth corrected herself with her usual painstaking fidelity to...

One of the strangest things in all her strange new life to Beth was the fact that although one lived in the same house with people it might be quite impossible to see them witho...

Christmas has a way of jumping out at the world as if it had crouched down low behind Thanksgiving Day and hidden. Then, suddenly, out it pops crying: “Ah, ha! You didn’t know I...

“It’s funny,” said Beth thoughtfully. “New York seemed to be doing all sorts of things when I came, and till now, and now it doesn’t seem to be doing anything else but get ready...

The three girl cousins were gathered in Natalie’s room doing up Christmas gifts. Rolls of white tissue paper, of crêpe paper figured in glowing poinsettia and holly; yards and y...

Christmas eve was a busy one. Other years the young Cortlandts’ tree had been trimmed for them, but this year the fact that the tree was intended to give poor children pleasure...

The Sunday after Christmas found Mr. Cortlandt kept in the house by a cold. Beth sought him out in the evening and found him beside his library fire. The logs burned cheerily, s...

Beth had a slight cold so could not go out. Her birthday was Valentine’s Day and her cousins hinted at some delightfully mysterious way in which it was to be celebrated and for...

“Shall you be ready to meet Shakespeare when he comes here on Tuesday night, Beth?” asked Mr. Cortlandt unexpectedly, emerging from behind his morning paper. “It is the custom o...

“How do you keep Easter at home, Beth? I mean how _did_ you keep Easter in your old home, Beth? We intend this to be home to you now and henceforth, you know.” Mrs. Cortlandt sm...

Suddenly New York seemed to bloom. Not only were the parks and squares gorgeous with flaunting tulips, but the shop windows were equally gay with flowers, living and artificial,...

How changed the house looked to Beth, now that it was settled that she was to leave it! Only a short half year ago it looked unfamiliar, its grandeurs frightened her. Now it see...