Carità

James Beresford and Annie his wife had been married for more than a dozen years--their only child, indeed, had nearly attained the age of twelve at the time when this history be...

‘Which you please; you are not gouty or rheumatical, or anything of that sort,’ said Mr. Maxwell, almost gaily. ‘Homburg, for instance--Homburg would do--or Baden, if you prefer...

The real honeymoon is not always a delightful moment. This, which sounds like heresy to the romantic, and blasphemy to the young, is a fact which a great many people acknowledge...

To live at Sunninghill, with one’s feet on a level with the highest pinnacle of the big Castle at St. George’s, what a thing it was in summer! All that country is eloquent with...

They stayed in Como till late in October, now here, now there, as caprice guided their steps. Sometimes Mrs. Beresford would be pleased to be quiet, to float about the lake in t...

‘Yes, Miss Carry, if you like. Your dear mamma is falling into a doze; and I don’t wonder, poor dear, after all those doctors a-poking and fingering. Oh, it turns my heart sick!...

James Beresford was not brave. He was very kind and tender and good; but he had not courage to meet the darker emergencies of life. He felt as he rushed downstairs from his wife...

‘This is indeed an affliction, dear Miss Beresford. We came up directly we heard of it; I would not let a moment pass. Oh, how little we know! We were thinking of your poor niec...

After this a long interval passed, which it is needless to describe in detail. Five years is a long time in a life; how much it does! Makes ties and breaks them, gives life and...

It was a rainy afternoon when Cara reached the Square. It had been settled, against Miss Cherry’s will, that she was to go alone. The girl, who was often ‘queer,’ especially whe...

It was Mrs. Meredith who lived next door--an old friend, who was the only person Mrs. Beresford had permitted to come and see her when she returned ill, and of whom Miss Cherry...

Mrs. Meredith’s drawing-room was not like the twin room next door. It was more ornate, though not nearly so beautiful. The three windows were draped in long misty white curtains...

Cara’s second evening at home was passed much more happily than the first, thanks to Mrs. Meredith, and her spirits rose in consequence; but next morning there ensued a fall, as...

When Mrs. Beresford died, as has been described, there was a great flutter of talk and private discussion among all who knew her about the particulars of her death. It was ‘so s...

Roger Burchell had set his mind steadily, from the moment of Cara’s translation to her father’s house, upon spending those Sundays, which he had hitherto passed at home, with hi...

To sit down in your morning clothes, painfully conscious of a blue tie with a pin it, at a decorous dinner-table with three men in correct evening dress, and two ladies--not ind...

Cara had a visitor quite early next day, when she had just retired upstairs to the drawing-room after breakfast. It was Edward Meredith, who came with some message from his moth...

‘Roger has been to pay dear Cara a visit,’ said Mrs. Burchell. ‘He was in London on Sunday with his kind aunt, at Notting Hill, and he thought he would call. I don’t approve of...

Miss Cherry’s sudden arrival at the Square was a sudden surprise to everybody, and, like most surprises, was not quite successful for the moment. She arrived in the afternoon, w...

Oswald Meredith had a new direction given to his thoughts. He was not, as may be easily divined, so clever as Cara gave him credit for being, nor, indeed, as his family supposed...

‘Cara, I want to tell you something,’ said Oswald. ‘Look here; here is a comfortable chair. Never mind your aunt; my mother will take care of her. I never have you now, not for...

‘My dear boy,’ said Mrs. Meredith, ‘I see what you are thinking of. You are young to settle in life, and about means there might be some difficulty; but to see you happy I would...

Mr. Beresford was seated in his library, as usual, in the morning; he had breakfasted and glanced over his newspaper, and now had settled down to ‘work,’ that is, to what he cal...

Old Mr. Sommerville got out of his little brougham at Mrs. Meredith’s door. He was a wealthy old man, of whom nobody knew very much, except that he had made his money in India,...

When Agnes Burchell encountered Oswald Meredith, as has been recorded, she had but recently taken up her abode at the ‘House.’ She had gone there much against the will of her fa...

Roger had not renewed his visit to Cara for some weeks. He had been too much cast down and discouraged by that first Sunday for which he had prepared so elaborately, and looked...

This was a time of great agitation for the two houses so close to each other, with only a wall dividing the troubles of the one from the excitement of the other, and a kind of s...

It is very hard to be obliged to alter our relationships with our friends, and still more hard to alter the habits which have shaped our lives. Mr. Beresford, when he was forbid...

The intercourse between the two houses went on for some time in that uncomfortable and embarrassing way which comes between the sudden pause of a domestic crisis and the inevita...

Cara was busy in the drawing-room next morning, arranging a basketful of spring flowers which had come from the Hill, when Oswald came in with his usual budget. He was light-hea...

The news which had produced so sudden and startling an effect upon the inmates of No. 7 had been known early in the morning of the same day to the inmates of No. 8. This it was...

Next day Mr. Beresford paid Mrs. Meredith a visit of condolence. It was natural and necessary, considering their friendship; but the manner in which that friendship had been int...

Oswald had found his particular pursuit interrupted by his father’s death. He could not go that day, which happened to be the hospital day, to meet Agnes at the gate; indeed, fo...

The full particulars of Mr. Meredith’s death and Mr. Meredith’s will came by the next mail; and this information acted as a kind of funeral ceremony and conclusion to the melanc...

Roger Burchell had made two unsuccessful visits to the Square--the first absolutely painful, the second disappointing. On both occasions he had failed to see Cara, except surrou...

Oswald’s spirits very soon recovered the shock of his father’s death. He was as light-hearted as ever after that day when he had visited little Emmy at the hospital. Perhaps the...

While Oswald went about the streets so lightly, and thought so pleasantly of his prospects, another mind, still more agitated than that of Cara, was turning over and over all he...

It was a beautiful morning in June when Agnes started from the House with her little charge, who was going to the Convent Sanatorium at Limpet Bay. She scarcely knew so soon as...

The afternoon was still, softer, brighter, warmer than the morning; the wind went down, and turned into the softest puff of a caressing breeze; the white caps of the waves melte...

This early summer had been a time of little pleasure to any one in the Square. Everything had seemed to go wrong from the day Miss Cherry went dolefully away, crying with wonder...

James Beresford was full of perturbation and troubled thoughts as well as his child. The romance of middle age is more difficult to manage than that of youth. It is less simple,...

ought to be done at once, she was all for putting off, avoiding the consideration, trusting in something that might turn up. Mr. Beresford, however, had wound himself up to this...

Notwithstanding the directness of this questioning, it was by no means a direct reply which Mr. Beresford got from Mrs. Meredith. It was not a refusal, but neither was it a cons...

A rumour had spread in the little hamlet which had gathered about the junction, of some travellers who had missed their train. The faintest rumour echoes a long way in the quiet...

Mr. Burchell was brought upstairs with some solemnity. Though Mrs. Meredith’s mind was very full of all that had been passing, and with no small amount of personal feeling, a fa...

It is not necessary to go into details, and tell how Mrs. Meredith forgave her son and received her new daughter. In any case, I don’t believe she would have been capable of ‘hu...