Deficient Saints: A Tale of Maine

In the dining-room of the old stone Mercer mansion in the town of Rossignol, Me., Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, sanctified vessel and uncommon saint, charter member of the church of t...

He gave her an unexpected smile. "She hasn't been brought up as we have--" Then he paused and fell into a reverie out of which his mother inexorably roused him. "I wish you woul...

Captain White was just getting home. For twenty years he had boarded with his cousin, Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, and now neither the near prospect of seeing her again after an abse...

Mrs. Prymmer's next-door neighbour was her clergyman,--the Rev. Bernal Huntington, pastor of the church of the United Brethren. It was an immense satisfaction to her to have so...

Justin Mercer's former monotonous life was at an end. With a faint red spot on either cheek, and with much internal diversion, he sat at the breakfast-table the next morning wat...

Mr. Huntington, after leaving the Mercer mansion, stood for a minute on the sidewalk, in deepest thought. He turned his face toward his own house, then, looking in the direction...

Two women--two of Mrs. Prymmer's chosen friends and satellites--were calling on Derrice. Mrs. Prymmer had sent a message to her room, and now sat smoothing her white apron, enjo...

Upon crossing the threshold of the house, Derrice found herself in an interior evidently copied from the French. The floors were of hard wood, a few handsome rugs lay about them...

At eleven o'clock Miss Gastonguay's brougham stopped before the Mercer house, and the coachman, pulling up his horses, looked over his shoulder, to see whether Derrice was openi...

"All right," and Captain White swung himself round a near corner and disappeared. That day he came home later than usual to dinner, and standing by the table looked with a conte...

The day after Justin's escape from the river, he went about with an unusually thoughtful face. There was something on his mind, and, with a variation of his usually methodical h...

After Miss Gastonguay left Justin, his long legs carried him rapidly in the direction of his own home, over the sidewalks, steaming in the hot March sun, and cooling again in th...

A week later Miss Gastonguay was giving a dinner-party. She had begged the favour of Mr. and Mrs. Mercer's company, and Derrice at the present moment was standing before her hus...

On passing through the music-room, Justin found Chelda alone there, playing dreamy waltzes with the intention of bringing Mr. Huntington to her side. She had made a mistake in d...

"You see," Miss Gastonguay went on, "there has always been something in our two natures that clashed. I have been the worst, I acknowledge it, and now I want to know if you will...

"Did you, Cousin Derrice? I guess you haven't a monopoly of this house. Mrs. Prymmer's off to a religious tea-party with some of the sisters, and Mrs. Negus, seeing me on the st...

"Now if they were only like the two little nigger boys that used to go to school with me, I could crack their heads together and make them kiss and be friends, but you can't ver...

A week or two went by, and all who came within the circle of Mrs. Prymmer's influence noticed a change in her, although not one of her friends or relatives ascribed the change t...

Chelda rose, and walked carelessly to a small reception-room off the hall. She only stayed a short time, and, on coming back, twirled a small note in her fingers, and sank into...

Chelda seemed absolutely indifferent to Mr. Huntington's departure. She was ready enough to discuss him when his name was mentioned, but all her utterances were so calm and disp...

The young burglar, seeing that nothing could be done, had fallen asleep. Prosperity was presiding over his slumbers in fascinated awe, and nearly jumped out of his skin when Mis...

There was great excitement in Rossignol over news of the attempted burglary at French Cross, and coupled with it was a mild indignation at Miss Gastonguay for allowing the disab...

Derrice was very much occupied now. She knew nearly all the residents of the town, and a great many of the visitors, and Justin was obliged to check her in her too great devotio...

Her straight figure was becoming bent, her short grizzled hair was more thickly mixed with white, her hand was less steady than it used to be, yet she persisted in her long ride...

In early days old Louis Gastonguay, who had no mind to be teased by the Indians as were other less shrewd settlers, purchased from a band of Penobscots their summer camping-grou...

"Sick!--crazy drunk," reflected her companion. "Justin don't tell her everything, and thank Heaven she ain't curious. She don't guess Bob Wallis put in the night trying to brain...

She was considerably annoyed by it. She was also annoyed by the detective's presumption in coming to see her, and when he did arrive she confronted him with a cool and haughty s...

Miss Gastonguay would not allow these servants to wear livery. Her coachman was obliged to do so. He had always been an underling, but tyrannical as she often showed herself wit...

The day had been too hot to walk, too hot to ride. Now at approaching evening she felt restless, and looking searchingly at the road wished that Derrice or her now frequent visi...

A certain criminal, whose full description was given him, might appear before him at any time. He was also to keep under constant espionage the households of Miss Gastonguay and...

Justin would not permit Derrice to go alone to French Cross. Captain White had assured him that he had better allow her to do so; that to accompany her at such an unusual time w...

He impatiently thumped Miss Gastonguay's binocular on his fat knee. All the afternoon he had been searching the glittering surface of Merry Meeting Bay. There was no steam yacht...

The early afternoon sun was streaming in the library windows. Miss Gastonguay's carved chair was placed in the full light of its rays. Her gray head and velvet jacket were respl...

The French Cross pony had always been regarded as an intelligent and highly cultured animal, an amusement to his mistress and the town in general, and by no means a source of me...