Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday

"Yes, indeed!" assented her chum and cousin, Ela Craye, joyfully. "I have wondered over and over how we were going to buy our summer clothes and spare enough money for a trip, a...

Love Ellsworth had won, as it appeared, a signal victory, and he hoped that by his determined will he had vanquished the opposition, so that Dainty would not have to suffer any...

Another very pleasing fact was that Dainty Chase had never turned up again to annoy her with assertions of a secret marriage, to which she could produce no proof but her simple...

A week had passed since the fatal birthday of Lovelace Ellsworth, and at the quiet twilight hour he lay among his pillows, a pale, breathing image of the splendid man whose life...

"I'se sorry, Massa Love, but I cudn't git up as quick as I ought to go ober to dat poor chile's aid, kase I was kinder struck dumb wif terror an' 'sprise; an' whiles I was setti...

"Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how I wake and passionate watches keep; And yet while I address thee now, Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. 'Tis sweet enough to make me weep,...

He suffered Dainty's caresses passively, but he did not return them, and his large, beautiful dark eyes dwelt on her face with the gentle calm of an infant whose intellect is no...

The bride mysteriously vanished, the bridegroom weltering in his blood! Both the victims of wrong and crime heinous enough to make the very angels turn away from watching such a...

Golden curls, a snare for Cupid. Eyes of blue, a treacherous sea, Where Love's votaries sink drowning, Wrecked on hidden reefs; ah, me! Lips of bloom like June's red roses, Lily...

"I believe my faith in thee Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be; I would as soon expect to see the sun Fall like a dead king from his height sublime, His glory stricken fro...

"Alone with my hopeless sorrow, No other mate I know! I strive to awake tomorrow, But the dull words will not flow. I pray--but my prayers are driven Aside by the angry Heaven,...

"I must start early in the morning for Lewisburg, our county seat. It is twenty miles distant, and I shall not return until night. Do you think you can bear the day without me?"...

It seemed to her that she was entombed alive, and left to her fate--left to die of darkness, terror, grief, and starvation, the wretched victim of a most cruel persecution; she...

"What is there that I should turn to, Lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, And opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, All the m...

Since the world began there was never a truer, sweeter love, nor one that promised more fairly, but, alas! none over which threatening clouds of Fate ever hung more darkly.

Her face was always thin and pale, her blue eyes hollow, with dark circles beneath them, while her breath was short and palpitating. She knew that she was strangely ill, and had...

"Bress her dear heart! Mammy gwine tek keer ob her ebry night, an' don't want no silber dollar for it, neider, dat she don't!" she exclaimed, pushing away Love's hand, though he...

"No--there's nothing left us now But to mourn the past; Vain was every ardent vow-- Never yet did Heaven allow Love so warm, so wild to last. Not even hope could now deceive me,...

Ah, what ineffable joy those two letters of Mrs. Middleton and Ailsa Scott carried to the heart of Fidelio in New York!--joy that his darling still lived, and that the proof of...

"Good! You are better! Let me help you to rise," said the old man, aiding him to a sofa. Taking a chair by him, he continued: "You have been unconscious for ten minutes, and we...

The night was warm and sultry, and few people strayed abroad; so out in the road, on the grassy bank by a little purling creek, there lay for hours the motionless form of a seem...

"Oh, friendships falter when misfortunes frown, The blossoms vanish when the leaves turn brown, The shells lie stranded when the tide goes down, But you, dear heart, are ever tr...

In the dead waste and middle of the night, the sleeping household of Ellsworth was startled from repose by long, loud, wailing cries that rang through the wide corridors and vau...

It's an era strange, yet sweet, Which every woman's heart has known, When first her young heart learns to beat To the soft music of a tone-- That era when she first begins To kn...

"Miss White, I will not allow you to speak unkindly of my dear friend. She was very unhappy, I know, and, to speak plainly, I suspected her condition some time ago; but I would...

John Franklin's manly blood had boiled with resentment at seeing poor Dainty driven away in disgrace from the home of which she was virtually the mistress, for he believed every...

A strange chance, or, perhaps, a kindly Providence, brought Sarah Ann Peters and old black mammy together that spring at the railway station near Ellsworth, where both were then...

The oaken door clanged heavily to, and the massive bolt, as it shot into place, sounded in Dainty's ears like the trump of doom, shutting her into a living grave; for now that s...

She had closed them consciously over six weeks ago in the gloomy dungeon beneath Ellsworth Castle, when, pressing to her desperate lips the bitter draught of death, she had bidd...

The experienced eyes of this motherly woman soon saw that the lovely young stranger was ill of fever, and in a very serious condition; but having successfully raised a family of...

"Your roses are fading in the hot sunshine, dear. Let us get some fresh ones," said Love to Dainty, anxious to draw her out of sight of the others, that he might seal their betr...

It was true that in some of her occasional solitary moments, in some quiet twilight hour, she had been startled by the sound of that hateful cough, coming from apparently nowher...

"Stop! stranger; may I speak with you?-- Ah, yes, you needn't fear-- While I whisper through the grating, I wouldn't have them hear. These jailers, if a body But chance to speak...

"Oh, Thou to whom my thoughts are known, Calm, oh, calm these trembling fears; Oh, turn away the world's cold frown, And dry these falling tears! Oh, leave me not alone in grief...

Who was he, what had he done, that Heaven should be so good to him, giving him the fairest, truest, sweetest girl in the world for his adored and loving bride?

The ill-looking maid flounced away, thinking resentfully that the pretty young lady was afraid to trust her with her keys, while Dainty, whose only reason had been an unwillingn...

"Really, for two young girls who were reared in poverty, you two have developed very extravagant tastes--so extravagant that I could not afford to gratify them if I had not so o...

Olive and Ela sighed with relief, hoping something had happened after all, to keep Dainty at home; but they would have been horrified if they had guessed that Ellsworth had not...

They treated her like a queen, but so warm was their devotion, and so eager their interest, they soon drew from her lips all that had happened to her in Richmond.

Dainty dragged herself slowly along the snowy street, almost exhausted by the weight of the hand-bag; and she wondered pathetically if it might not be best to follow her mother'...

"You are going to say you can not get ready so soon; but you need not make many preparations, love. I want you to wear my mother's wedding-dress; it is so beautiful--a white bro...