Caught in a Trap

"Even the worst laws are so necessary for our guidance, that without them, men would devour one another," remarks Epicurus--in order to exemplify the frailty of human nature, ac...

Bigton was, in a word, bewitched--good reason, too, if all things were taken into consideration. It is not every day, according to our Hibernian friends, that "Morris kills a pi...

Imagine the unexpected arrival of the murdered Duncan's wraith at Macbeth's correct little dinner party, just after the soup had been removed--a break-down of the Prima Donna at...

It came to pass on the following Sunday, two days after their arrival, that Tom and his friend went to church along with the dowager, as befitted respectable people, and a famil...

The nuptial couch is not always a bed of roses, and so the young incumbent of Hartwood found out after a time. Not that it was all the fault of his newly-married spouse. Laura l...

"Hullo! Markworth. How lucky! Why you are just the man I want; you're ubiquitous, who'd have thought of seeing you in town?" said Tom Hartshorne, of the --th Dragoons, cheerily,...

The engulfment of the last straw on which he, the drowning man, had leant his weight, left Markworth without a single loophole of escape: he did not know where to turn.

In order to explain Susan's reappearance under these exceptional circumstances, it will be necessary that we should retrace our steps and return to a date some months back in ou...

Mrs Hartshorne's lawyers had their offices in one of the most palatial and dingy of that, whilom palatial, and now most dingy, collection of houses, which it would be sheer luna...

Nothing much in the name certainly, at first sight, nor yet such a very extraordinary address, either in the nomenclature of the mansion, or in its surroundings; but the two tak...

"Ha!" he thought, "they want to compromise, do they? It's rather late in the day for that, and they won't catch me with any chaff. But I may as well go round and see what they a...

"Fiddle-de-dee! Thomas," said the old dowager, with considerable asperity, "why you'll be wanting a glass coach and four, and a cocked hat next. Stuff and nonsense, sir, it's al...

"Miss Kingscott, I presume?" said Tom, bowing politely, as the lady gave a Parthian glance, sharp, quick, and incisive, of mingled recognition and command-to-keep-his-own-counse...

Barometers are of such use to maritime and other folk, in indicating the changes of atmospherical phenomena, and the approach of disturbing elements, that it is a wonder in thes...

"But, my dear madam," interposed Mr Trump, who had come down especially to The Poplars, for the purpose of breaking the news, and considering what was to be done on receiving Mi...

The London season had ended: so Lady Inskip, having packed up her baggage waggons, gathered her _impedimenta_ around her, and mustered her forces, consisting of her two grown-up...

When he had been down at The Poplars some weeks now, he said one morning at the breakfast table that he must run up to town for a day or two, as he had some important business t...

The most powerful logic fails to supply one with any rules or data whereby to analyse the workings and application of motives. If we try within ourselves even to trace back a pa...

Doctor Jolly trotted along the road from Bigton to Hartwood, with Huz and Buz his brother, cantering at his horse's heels, and making short predatory excursions every now and th...

He is not a very romantic Damon is Doctor Jolly, nor is he at the present time to be seen under favourable circumstances, or in the most picturesque of situations.

"Aye, that would be telling, sure," as a native of the Emerald Isle says when you question him about anything he does not care to disclose. But few persons could give you any sa...

"The Jezabel!" she said, in a voice of anger, "I've never been so scandalously treated in my life. You need not laugh, miss!" she fired out on Carry, who was exploding in fits o...

The nominal week, which had been mentioned as the duration of Markworth's stay at The Poplars, passed pleasantly enough for Tom at all events. So pleasantly indeed, that he did...

"I sat by his mother one midsummer day, And she looked me through and through As I spoke of her lad who was far away, For she guessed that I loved him too!"

Clara Kingscott, when Mrs Hartshorne sent her away from The Poplars in that ignominious manner, telling her she did not require her services any further, was more than half incl...

She wanted to roll many issues into one, and like a prudent general, she conned her forces, surveyed their position, and considered her war _materiel_; all being in train, she d...

While events were thus hastening on abroad, all was quiet at home, both at The Poplars and the parsonage. Fancy Andromeda's lamentations when Perseus left her! and in her place...

At the commencement of the fifth chapter of the veracious history of the Knight of La Mancha, it is related that "Don Quixote perceiving that he was not able to stir, resolved t...

Change of scene is one of the most potent panaceas for mental ills; and change of scene had in a few week effected Susan's complete recovery. She had been under Markworth's care...

Late on the evening of the day after the marriage in London, Markworth and his charge--lately his "sister," now _Madame sa femme_--arrived at the half-seaport town, half-fashion...

When the veteran perceived that all her operations _in re_ Tom and the gushing Carry must for a time be postponed, on account of the prostration of the principal combatant, she...

Just about the time when the curate of St. Catherine Cross' Church, in London, was asking Markworth whether he would take this woman, M. or N., to be his wedded wife, the dowage...

"Het-wood!" shouted the guard vehemently, as the train in which Tom Hartshorne and Markworth had left London drew up at a little wayside station, closely adjoining Hartwood vill...

"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor one morning towards the end of October, when the weather was getting damp and misty, as he entered his comfortable breakfast parlour, where Debora...

How came she there--his Nemesis? Politely bowed out, after she had avowed her share in Markworth's conspiracy to Mr Trump, Clara Kingscott walked away from the lawyers' offices...

Typical characteristics, however decided, vary with the effects of time and change; and so the dowager had altered very much for the better, as regards her temper and dispositio...

Markworth still sat in the same position in the untidy, ill-furnished private room at the sponging-house after the governess, his enemy, had left him--with his face hidden betwe...

It was not until late in the morning that Clara Kingscott was let out of the cell in the police-station, where she had been locked up, and was taken to be examined before _Monsi...

"_Partant pour la Syrie_" should have been the proper title for this chapter, only instead of _la Syrie_, read _l'Abysinne_; but as "The girl I left behind me" is more appropria...

The winter passed by and fled. Ships from foreign parts came and went from Havre; and still, although the police with the able Chef at their head kept a strict look out and surv...

"Now, Lizzie, I want to know what all this means?" said the Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., putting on quite a fatherly dignity of manner to his sister, an evening or two after...

"Gracious Heavens, Clara! What brings you here?" uttered Markworth, half in astonishment, half in terror, as he suddenly turned round, and was confronted by Miss Kingscott, imme...

The Abyssinian war was ended! that gallant exploit of British arms, however marvellous in its inception, and second only to the march of Cyrus to the Sea that we read of in Xeno...

"Well, they might call it spying if they liked. She had watched this Markworth enter the house already pointed out in the Rue Montmartre. She had then herself gone to the Hotel...

As soon as he saw that there was no chance of prevailing on the old dowager to pay over Susan's inheritance without calling in the aid of the law, he quickly set the slowly-movi...

Following the Chef, on her arrival at the office, Miss Kingscott found Monsieur le Juge de Paix to be an oldish man, with sharp striking features, his nose having an unfair adva...