Court Netherleigh: A Novel

Colonel Hope was striding about his library with impatient steps. He wore a wadded dressing-gown, handsome once, but remarkably shabby now, and he wrapped it closely around him,...

But, as you have heard, there is something yet to relate of that hot June day, or, rather, of its evening, when poor Selina Dalrymple had applied for help, and unsuccessfully, t...

They stood together in the dusk of the evening, the tempter and the deceived. Really it is not too much so to designate them. She, one of the fairest of earth's fair daughters,...

It was all over and done with long before Mr. Grubb got up from Blackheath in the afternoon. He felt terribly vexed. Vexed for Charles himself, terribly vexed for Charles's fami...

It was Monday morning. Charles Cleveland sat on his iron bedstead in his dreary cell in Newgate: of which cell he had become heartily tired by this time: chewing there in solitu...

The stately rooms were thrown open for the reception of the guests, and the evening was already waning. Wax-lights innumerable shed their rays on the gilded decorations, the exq...

"I have opened the matter to Grace, and there'll be no trouble with her," began Lady Acorn to her husband the next morning, halting to say it as she was going into her dressing-...

Standing at the open window of her own pretty sitting-room, a room that had been built and decorated for her during the late alterations to Moat Grange, was Mary Dalrymple. Robe...

A small, friendly dinner-table, Mr. Grubb and Lady Adela presiding. A thin, sharp-featured, insignificant little man, whose evening clothes looked the worse for wear, and who wo...

In a small "appartement" in the Champs Elysées, so small, indeed, that the whole of it could almost have been put into the salon of the château in Switzerland, and in its small...

The year had gone on, and the season was at its height. In the breakfast-room at Sir Francis Netherleigh's house in Grosvenor Square sat his sister, waiting to pour out the coff...

There is no misfortune on earth so great as that of a troubled conscience: there is nothing that will wear the spirits and the frame like a burdensome secret which may not be to...

Alone in the oak-parlour at Moat Grange, playing soft bits of melody in the summer twilight, sat Selina Dalrymple, her very pretty face slightly flushed, her bright hair pushed...

A draughty old château in Switzerland. Not that it need have been draughty, for it lay at the foot of a mountain, sheltered from the east winds. But the doors did not fit, and t...

They had brought down the pheasants: never had a first of October afforded better spoil: and they had lingered long at the sport, for evening was drawing on. Robert Dalrymple, t...

Strolling hither and thither, just as his steps led him, for in truth he had no purpose just then, so intense was his mental distress, Mr. Grubb found himself somehow in Jermyn...

The hum of the busy London world came floating drowsily in through a bedroom window in Berkeley Street, open to the hot and brilliant summer day, and falling, unnoticed, upon th...

Reuben came forward from the back of the hall. The moment Mr. Grubb caught sight of his face, usually so full of healthy bloom, now pale and woe-begone, he was seized with a pre...

Things were coming to a revolt. Never were poor tenant-farmers so ground down and oppressed as those on the estate of Moat Grange. Rents were raised, fines imposed, expenses, pr...

It was a magnificent room, everything magnificent about it, as it was fitting the library of Chenevix House should be: a fine mansion overlooking Hyde Park. What good is there t...

Pacing his library at Chenevix House, in almost the same perturbation that was tormenting his mind when we first met him in this history, strode the Earl of Acorn. The cause of...

It was two o'clock when Lady Adela returned home. She ran lightly upstairs and into the drawing-room, throwing off her mantle as she came in. A tray of refreshments stood on a s...

In the midst of the Berkshire scenery, so fair and wealthy, this pleasant little place, Netherleigh, nestled in a sylvan hollow. It was only a small, unpretending hamlet at its...

It was a few days later. Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple, who had been spending the afternoon with her mother and Mary Lynn, was preparing to return to the Grange. Alice had just come home...

Some weeks later, in an obscure room of a low and dilapidated lodging-house, in a low and dilapidated neighbourhood, there sat a man one evening in the coming twilight: a toweri...

The residence of Mrs. Lynn at Blackheath was a substantial, old-fashioned, roomy house on the heath, standing alone within a high wall surrounded by trees. And to this house, on...

The hot rays of the June sun lay on the west-end streets one Thursday at midday, and on three men of fashion who were strolling through them arm-in-arm. He who walked in the mid...

Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple's carriage stopped at the door of Madame Damereau. Other carriages, waiting for their ladies, drew aside for it, and Mrs. Dalrymple descended. Rather tall,...

December was in, and winter weather lay on the earth. Court Netherleigh looked out on a lovely view, rare as a scene from fairyland. Snow clung to the branches of the trees in f...

Never a doubt had crossed the mind of those concerned for the welfare of Charles Cleveland, that he would be set at liberty on Tuesday, the day following the one above spoken of.

They sat at the well-spread dessert-table in Grosvenor Square, those two gentlemen, the sole partners of almost the wealthiest house in London; keen, honourable, first-rate men...

The above exclamation spoken by Lady Adela Grubb in a sort of resentful tone, as she read a letter while sipping her coffee, caused her husband to look up. He sat at the opposit...

The eighth day after the accident to Mr. Dalrymple was a day of rejoicing, for he was so far recovered as to be up for some hours. A sofa was drawn before the fire, and he lay o...

In the bed of a large and luxurious chamber, her delicate face pressing the pillow, her eyes closed to the shaded light, lay Lady Adela Grubb. The baby she so wished for had com...

Sundry shouts startling the night-air, combined with the dashing up of horsemen, caused no little stir amidst the crowd. The booming of the alarm-bell somewhat earlier in the ev...

One of the most able counsellors of the day, Mr. Serjeant Mowham, chanced to be intimately acquainted with the Rector of Netherleigh; and the unhappy father despatched him to Ne...

In the light of the late but genial autumn sunshine lay Court Netherleigh. September was quickly passing. It was summer weather when we last met the reader; it is getting on for...

Once more a year has gone its round, bringing again to London all the stir and bustle of another season. It is a lovely afternoon towards the close of May, and there is some sli...

In my Lady Acorn's dressing-room at Chenevix House stood my lady herself, her head and hands betraying temper, her tart tongue in loud assertion. Opposite to her, the same blond...

Midnight. Pacing her chamber in her light dressing-robe, its open sleeves thrown back from her restless hands, as if for coolness, was the Lady Adela. Throughout the whole busin...

On just such a lovely June day as described above, and twelve months later, another fête took place. But this time it was at Court Netherleigh. Not an open-air fête, this, or on...

Mary Lynn had started up with a cry, so surprised was she to see him enter. She stood blushing even to tears. And Robert? Conscious how unworthy he was of her, how impossible it...