By Birth a Lady

"Bai Jove, Vining! that you?" languidly exclaimed a little, thin, carefully-dressed man, ambling gently along on one of the most thoroughly-broken of ladies' mares, whose pace w...

Mr Onesimus Bray led rather an uncomfortable life at home, and more than once he had confided his troubles to the sympathising ear of Sir Philip Vining. Laura was given to snubb...

Three months after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, Littleborough Station, on the Great Middleland and Conjunction Railway, woke into life; for it was nearly noon, an...

"Now do tell us, there's a dear man," said cook, alias Sarah Stock, to Edward, the hard-faced footman, as he sat in front of the kitchen fire at Copse Hall, gently rubbing his s...

If any one will take the trouble to refer to _Bradshaw's Guide_--that fine piece of exercise for the brain--for the month in the year in which the events being recorded took pla...

Most persons possessed of feeling will readily agree that scarcely anything could be more unpleasant than for a gentleman, bent upon making himself attractive to a lady, to meet...

"Bai Jove, seems a strange thing!" said Max Bray at breakfast-time, about a week after the events recorded in the last chapter--"seems a strange thing you women can't settle any...

Mrs Brandon returned to the drawing-room after Charley Vining's departure, to find Ella as she had left her, standing cold and motionless, supporting herself by one hand upon th...

It was one of the things generally known in the neighbourhood of Blandfield, that Sir Philip Vining gave up the Court to his son, who, in a very short time, was to confer upon i...

"He mustn't have so much corn, Joseph," said Mr Tiddson, parish doctor of Croppley Magna, addressing a grinning boy of sixteen, who, with his smock-frock rolled up and twisted r...

Gone without leaving a trace behind! Would she take another engagement, and write to Mrs Bray for a recommendation? She might, or she might not. She had taken the train at Lexvi...

Some people might have called Charley Vining a spoiled child, who had had everything he wished for from his earliest days, and now, at the first disappointment in life, was turn...

"Will you take down Miss Bedford, Max?" said Mrs Bray, according to instructions from her son, who, however, was not present, his toilet having detained him; and, therefore, tre...

The wedding-morning, with all its flutter, flurry, and excitement! The bride pale, but collected; Nelly and her sister bridesmaids appealing vainly to one another for help; hair...

"Dear Max,--I will take him into the waiting-room, where there is a good view of the platform. I can keep him there, _I think_. But you must be quick. Recollect, a momentary gla...

Breakfast over at the Elms, and no improvement in the weather. Maximilian Bray said that it was impossible to go out, "bai Jove!" so he was seated in a low _bergere_ chair in th...

In spite of her annoyance, Laura's eyes sparkled when they reached the Court; for Sir Philip hurried to the carriage, welcoming the party most warmly, and, handing her out, he l...

"Hasten on--hasten on!" The rattle of the train still repeating those words, and Ella's heart sinking, as they sped through the darkness; for still, in spite of her struggle wit...

Mrs Brandon's was a genuine feeling of affection for the gentle motherless girl who strove so hard and not unsuccessfully to gain the love of her pupils. She had called herself...

The sun shone brightly through the bare branches, and the soft blue vapour from Charley Vining's cigar floated upwards, but without poisoning the atmosphere, as red-hot opponent...

Then he tried to look through the keyhole of the door, but something arrested his vision. He knocked and called again and again, but there was not even the sound of breathing to...

"It is cruel, monstrous!" exclaimed Sir Philip, after a long pause. "But, O my boy, what have I done? I thought to make you honoured and loved of all. My sole desire was to make...

It was the day of the Blandfield Court invitation, and the ladies were assembling in the drawing-room. For, some days before, in accordance with his promise, Sir Philip had been...

"Bai Jove! she's about the most skittish little filly I ever met with in the whole course of my experience," muttered Max Bray; and then he went over mentally the many rebuffs h...

Charley Vining started as, instead of Ella Bedford, he was confronted by a tall, handsome, middle-aged lady, who bowed stiffly, and motioned him to a seat, taking one herself at...

"My dear boy, yes--of course I will; and we'll have a nice affair of it! Edgington's people shall fit up a tent and a kiosk, and we'll try and do the thing nicely. You're giving...

There is a boundary even to human patience; and now, after many days, Max Bray began to find his position very irksome. There was every probability of Ella's being a long and te...

"Ha, ha, ha! Me married! Why, my dear father, what next?" Then, seeing the look of pain in Sir Philip's countenance, he rose and stood by his side, resting one hand upon his sho...

To have seen the company assembled in the Reverend Henry Lingon's grounds upon that bright afternoon, it might have been imagined that for the time being no marring shadow could...

They were rather famous for their flower-shows at Lexville, not merely for the capital displays of Nature's choicest beauties, educated by cunning floriculturists to the nearest...

Alone--alone once more in her bedroom, the scene of so many bitter tears, Ella stood with flushed cheeks, and eyes that seemed to burn, thinking of the words that had been utter...

Those who ran off on foot, upon first seeing the carriage clash by, gave up after a two-mile race, and the most impetuous of them were standing at a corner when the barouche cam...

Poor Ella! in her happy innocence she did not know that she was as surely leaving a trail by which she could be tracked, as did the child in the story, who sprinkled a few ashes...

"Well, Charley my boy," said Sir Philip Vining, a few mornings after, "you must keep the ball rolling. You are going along swimmingly. But ladies like plenty of attentions. What...

Nothing daunted, he repeated his calls, till it was perfectly evident that neither Mrs Marter nor Ella would see him; and he was coming away knit of brow one day, when he starte...

"I wonder what's become of Miss Bedford!" said the cook at Mrs Brandon's, as she sat with her fellow-servants enjoying the genial warmth of the fire before retiring to rest.

"Stop, stop!" said Max hoarsely. "We must have no scene with that weak woman. I will be in waiting by the park entrance of the Colosseum with a cab at four. Meet me there. The t...

During the rest of the evening at the Brays' party Charley was lively and chatty. By an effort he seemed to have cast aside the feelings that oppressed him; and as they went bac...

Disturbed as Laura evidently was by some powerful motive, it was not long before her eye rested upon the occupants of the stalls immediately below, but two or three tiers nearer...

As the old novelists used to say, in their courtly polished style, that makes us think that they must have written with a handsome bead-work presentation pen dipped in scented i...

"Yes, Thomas. Go to Mr Charles's room, and tell him that I should be glad of half an hour's conversation with him before he goes out, if he can make it convenient."

"Bai Jove, Mrs Marter, it does a man good to see you," said Max Bray, sauntering one afternoon into the Marter drawing-room, carefully dressed, as a matter of course, and with a...

"It was dooced unfortunate, bai Jove!" Max Bray said to himself, as he sat over his dinner at the snug little hotel at the end of the third day. He could not think what the fool...

"Hooray, here's Charley Vining!" cried Nelly, as Sir Philip and his son entered the Brays' drawing-room; and bounding over the carpet, she ran up, and caught the latter by the h...

Ella could not answer, when, seeing her agitation, her companion forbore to speak, but kept on consulting his watch. Now he pulled down the front window to tell the driver to ha...

The Brays' mansion in Harley-street, and as grand a dinner as had been in the long, gaunt, dreary place for months past. Sir Philip and Charley had called the morning before, an...

The telegram to the Bray family was from the little Gloucestershire town, telling what the hotel-keepers were at length able to impart, through a letter they had found in his po...

More bustle, and pressing, and confusion; the steps round the font invaded, and two small boys mounted on the stove to get a good view, while no one interrupts them; the organ-g...

Waiting your turn in a dull cheerless room along with half a dozen more people who always seem oil to your water or _vice versa_, so as to insure non-mixing, is about one of the...

"La Donna e Mobile," hummed Charley again and again, as he sat in the smoking-room of his hotel. He had paid no heed to the concert, his eyes being fixed all the while upon Max...

Maximilian Bray, Esq., clerk in her Majesty's Treasury, Whitehall, sat in his dressing-room soured and angry. He had been hard at work trying to restore the mischief done by the...

As if to show him how long he had been heedlessly wandering through the streets, Charley found Sir Philip quietly seated at the hotel on his return; and though his father carefu...

"What about?" said Lingon. "Why, about your coming marriage, to be sure. Haven't seen you before, or I should have given you a word or two. Rather too bad of Laura Bray, though."

"No," said Charley. "I'll ride up there before lunch, and tell them. I want to see if my little maid Nelly has come back yet: she seems to make the Brays' place more bearable wh...

It was not until Ella had been gone a fortnight that Charley Vining learned the news of her departure; as it happened, upon the same day that it was brought home to Max Bray tha...

Keeping to her determination, Ella wrote cheerfully to Mrs Brandon, making the best of everything, and then devoted herself energetically to the task of trying to shape the rugg...

Nine o'clock the next--or rather, by the way in which we calculate time, calling by the same title the hours of obscurity and those of sunshine, the same--morning, Mr and Mrs Ma...

Ella Bedford might well be excused for looking with astonished eyes at the three juveniles to whom she was expected to teach deportment in connection with music and language--Br...

John Dudgeon was right. Ella Bedford's luggage was directed to Mrs Brandon's, Copse Hall, Laneton, to reach which, unless a fly had been engaged to convey her across country, El...

Two minutes had scarcely elapsed before there was the faint rustling of a lady's dress and the creaking of a boot, and then two pale faces-- those of brother and sister--appeare...

Sir Philip Vining ate his dinner alone that day, for his son was an absentee. In fact, a good half-hour before the appointed time Charley Vining was in Gorse Wood walking up and...

They said it was too bad that the heir to Blandfield Court should be married in London; but whether too bad or no, in the course of the autumn Charles Vining and his lady were a...

"And, pray, what are you doing here?" exclaimed Laura Bray, as she saw the tall slim form of her sister Nelly standing between her and the object of her dislike.

"I must; I have a letter or two to write," said Laura, trying hard to appear calm, and play into her brother's hand. But so far the efforts of brother and sister were without ef...

Mrs Brandon made no movement as the card was handed to Ella; but a look of firmness seemed imperceptibly to sweep across her pleasant matronly face, and one skilled in physiogno...

Charley Vining took the letter with trembling hand from the silver salver upon which it lay, glancing the while at the superscription, written in an awkward scrawly character, a...

At the last words uttered by Mr Whittrick, Charley Vining started forward, and gazed at the speaker as if he would have devoured the ordinary-looking slip of paper rustling befo...

Three months had glided away with, at the end of that time, matters still in the same unsatisfactory state. There had been no open collision between Max Bray and his sturdy riva...

And how about Laura? Well, she loved him, and it was his father's wish. He had committed himself to it now, too; and if he were to marry, why not her as well as any other woman?

"Here, let-down the window! Open the door! Good heavens, there'll be some one killed! Let him be; we'll get him in. Those porters are so officious, and they cause accidents, ins...

A week after, Charley and Ella were in the hall, and about to leave their house, when there was a summons at the door, and they retreated to the drawing-room.

Dr Tiddson at last, panting and out of breath; for he had run the greater part of two miles, and upon hearing the few words Mrs Brandon had to utter, he cast aside all the pedan...

There was a look of calm resignation on Charley Vining's face as he met his father at their early breakfast that morning, to which he had descended without a trace of excitement...

The summer was drawing to an end; the ripe tints of the coming autumn were beginning to appear in many a rich clump of trees; but Sir Philip said, in his quiet courtly style, th...