Crump folk going home

The servants crept quietly, starting when the boards creaked, clutching each other at shadows, and looking for ancestors at every turn. Upstairs, mother and betrothed, doctor an...

The little station looked innocent enough, with its solitary platform and single line, its flower-borders and toy buildings;--innocent and sleepy, awaiting a tardy train, but to...

“I want to ask your opinion about something,” she said, leaving the salmon barrier-wise on the pavement, “so come along to the café, and be asked it like a lamb. It’s no use pre...

Larruppin’ Lyndesay, perturbed by the events of the morning, roared down Hillgate at a pace that sent peaceful marketers flying to the pavement. Dixon of Dockerneuk, coming up l...

Slinker’s wife drew up with a flourish at Crump steps, but she relinquished the reins rather wearily. She looked almost tired--Christian thought--a thing very foreign to her ext...

Deb found her father in his usual place by the window, looking out over the road and the rush-edged river, and up the slope of the park to the plantation outlined against the sk...

“Why not cut it down?” Mrs. Slinker asked, from the deep window seat in the hall. She had been riding, and had come straight to her favourite post, from which she could see the...

From some obscure corner a dusty _Doll’s House_ was dragged into the light of day; _Anne Veronica_ scuttled into position beside the latest problem novel, _Woman Enthroned_; Zol...

In the middle of the long, steep hill up which the village of Crump climbed, Augustus sat firmly on the best green velvet footstool out of his mother’s parlour. He was not a mod...

Slinker’s wife was restless on Christmas Eve. At dinner, she talked in feverish snatches, and ate nothing; and when the dismal meal was over at last, she wandered nervously from...

Deb turned from earnest contemplation of a window of tinned fruits to find the Hon. Mrs. Stalker’s carriage at the grocer’s steps, that august personage herself enthroned therei...

Even at the gates of Heron Grant sighed, for sounds of song came roystering down the drive to meet him. A tambourine rattled bravely, a piano banged, and that last instrument of...

A slow but sure affection was coming into being between the old Crump agent and the new. As a rule, this particular sympathy is far to seek, for the young man is nervous of the...

Deb opened her window to the soft, damp breath of a real hunting morning. The trees on the hillside showed weirdly through the gray mist. The river below looked like a tarnished...

“I suppose you were flattering yourself you’d lost me!” he observed, falling into step, “but I took care to notice when you scurried away. It’s no use trying to disguise yoursel...

Verity put a hand round the curtain and waved wildly, and Larruppin’ Lyndesay, who had been at the beck of those fingers too long not to recognise them under any circumstances,...

They were left alone on the empty stage--Verity and her champion at need, shut in by the thick curtain from the ebbing crowd beyond. She had closed the piano, but she still sat...

“I’m comin’ home with you,” Larrupper announced, stepping after her into the Heron brougham. His face was quite colourless, and he did not look at her. “Old Grange is followin’...

A threatening sky was scudding before a fast-rising gale, and an ominous dread lay over the marsh, but Roger Lyndesay walked in a sheltered corner at Kilne between borders of ye...

Callander was in the hall when they went down, and he took Deborah home. He wondered a little at the ceremoniousness with which Christian took leave of them at the door, but he...

His mother had disappeared when he came back into the hall, but Rishwald, emerging from the library, was struggling into his coat. He asked for his car, checking Christian’s apo...

Augustus began the afternoon by a dastardly theft. Meeting a lady of similar age and costume (three years and a short serge frock), inordinately inflated by the possession of a...

“The land is positively hilarious!” Christian remarked, from the library window, looking out on the April afternoon. “I’ve never seen Crump smile before, but to-day the dear old...