Brooke's Daughter: A Novel

"Neither can papa," repeated Lady Alice, with raised brows. "My dear child, Mrs. Romaine is a great friend of your father's. He told me only the other day that she used to come...

Lady Alice was not long in finding out that Maurice Kenyon, her husband's chief friend, was the man of whom Lesley had spoken in her letters, and also the doctor who had interes...

Caspar Brooke was not as yet debarred the privilege of seeing his friends, and on the morning after his arrest he had a great many visitors, including, of course, Maurice Kenyon...

Mr. Brooke advanced quite quietly into the room. Perhaps he had not seen or heard so very much. Certainly he glanced very keenly--first at Lesley, who leaned half-fainting again...

Something in the slightly mutinous expression of Lesley's face seemed to strike her father. He looked at her fixedly for a minute or two, then smiled a little, and began to busy...

Far away from the eminently respectable quarter of London, adorned by the habitation of families like the Brookes, the Kenyons, and the Romaines, you may find an unsavory distri...

Oliver shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man to whom women's caprices are incomprehensible. But he was silent until dessert was placed upon the table, and Mrs. Romaine's...

Lesley retained for some time a feeling of distinct anger against Maurice Kenyon, even while she came to acknowledge the truth of divers of his words. But their truth, she told...

The morning of Ethel Kenyon's wedding-day was as bright and sunny as any wedding day had need to be. The weather was unusually warm, and the trees were already showing the thin...

Lesley stood irresolute. In the other room she heard the sound of voices calling her own name. "We are just going, Lesley," she heard Mrs. Romaine say. She made a hurried step t...

Caspar Brooke was a busy man, and he was quite determined that his daughter's arrival should make no difference in his habits. In this determination he was less selfish than ste...

Oliver turned round sharply, with an air of visible impatience. He knew the voice well enough, and the moon-light left him no doubt as to the lineaments of a face with which he...

The Convent of the Annonciades, situated in a secluded spot on the outskirts of Paris, has long been well reputed as an educational establishment for young ladies of good family...

Mrs. Romaine and Oliver Trent attributed Lesley's desire to see Macclesfield Buildings to a young girl's curiosity, and, perhaps, to a desire for Oliver's company. They had no c...

On the day preceding Lesley Brooke's arrival in London, a tall, broad-shouldered man was walking along Southampton Row. He was a big man--a man whom people turned to look at--a...

"You may say 'pooh' as much as you like, but the fact remains. When Lesley leaves me, say next August or September, she goes to her mother and her grandfather, who's an earl, mo...

Mr. Brooke had not long quitted Mrs. Romaine's drawing-room when it was entered by another man, whose personal resemblance to Mrs. Romaine herself was so striking that there cou...

Lesley found that she had unintentionally given great offence to Sarah, who was a supreme authority in her father's house, and possibly to her aunt as well, by the arrangement w...

It was true, as Mrs. Trent had said, that Lesley's face often now wore a look of perplexity and trouble. This look had many differing causes; but amongst them, not the least was...

The conversation between Lesley and her mother occupied a considerable time, and the sun was sinking westward when at last the two ladies left the Convent. Lesley's adieux had b...

The reason why Caspar Brooke spoke somewhat sharply to Lesley was not far to seek. He had been to Mrs. Romaine's house to tea. The sequence of cause and effect can easily be con...

The girl shrank back a little, but she did not remove her eyes from her mother's face. A great dread, however, had entered into them. A hot color leaped into her cheeks. Scarcel...

Added to Lesley's new views of life, there was also a new feeling for her father. In the first rush of enthusiastic admiration for his book, she forgot all that she had heard ag...

Caspar turned away. For a moment he felt mortally sick, as if from a pang of acute physical pain. Distrust from an old friend is always a hard thing to bear. And so, for a momen...

Miss Brooke was electrified. Such a thing had never occurred to her as possible. After years of separation, of dispute, of ill-feeling on either side, here was Lady Alice appear...

"Well, there are some elements of oddity in this case," remarked Caspar Brooke, striking in with unexpected readiness to defend his daughter's views. "Kingston was not a giddy y...

"That is because you are a man, and therefore blind to what goes on around you," said Mary Trent, with sudden bitterness; "and I am a woman, and can use my eyes and ears. There,...

Lesley went home to sleep, and learned from her aunt the details of her father's arrest. "But he will be back in a few hours," said Miss Brooke, obstinately. "They will be oblig...

To those who knew Caspar Brooke best, it seemed ridiculously impossible that he should have been accused of any act of violence. But the accusation was made with so much circums...

Caspar Brooke's dingy drawing-room looked cheerful enough that night, filled by a crowd of men and women, and animated by the buzz of constant talk and movement. It was a distin...

"I have brought a nurse with me. She can go in and sit by the bed until you are ready to return," said Maurice, quietly. "Call us, nurse, if my sister wakes and asks for us; but...

The two paused for an instant under a gas lamp. Oliver looked into Francis Trent's drawn, livid face--into the wild, bloodshot eyes, and for an instant recoiled. It struck him t...

Lesley was sitting in a low chair near a small wood fire, which the chillness of the October day made fully acceptable. She had a book on her lap, but she did not look as if she...

"You are quite well," said the doctor to John Smith, otherwise called Francis Trent, at the great hospital one day. "You can go out to-morrow. There is nothing more that we can...

It was a difficult matter for Maurice Kenyon so to word his report to Caspar Brooke as not to excite his displeasure against Lesley. He felt himself bound to respect Lesley's co...

Meanwhile, Lady Alice Brooke, in pursuit of her new fancy for philanthropy and the sick poor, had wandered somewhat aimlessly into other wards beside those set apart for women a...

"I have been very blind," said Maurice seriously. "I never thought until to-day of associating him in my mind with someone else--someone whom I have seen twice during the past w...

The house in which the Kenyons resided was built on the same pattern as Mr. Brooke's, but it was in some respects very unlike Mr. Brooke's place of residence. Maurice's consulti...

Lady Alice's movements were not without interest to Caspar Brooke, although Lesley did not suspect the fact. It was quite a surprise to her when he entered the library one day,...

Lesley's life seemed to her now much less lonely than it had been at first. The consciousness of having made friends was pleasant to her, although her affection for Ethel had be...

Maurice was no backward lover. He made his way to Lesley that very day, and found her in the library--not, as usual, bending over a book, but standing by the window, from which...