Diana Tempest, Volume I

John was eleven years old when, during a memorable Easter holidays, his father died, and lay in state in the round room in the western tower, and was buried at midnight by torch...

On the paths of self-interest the grass is seldom allowed to grow under the feet. Colonel Tempest hurried. It would be tedious to follow the various steps feverishly taken which...

Colonel Tempest and his miniature ten-year-old replica of himself had made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit in opposite corners of the smoking carriage. I...

Rooms seldom represent their inmates faithfully, any more than photographs their originals, and a poorly-furnished room, like a bad photograph, is, as a rule, a caricature. But...

Lent gave way to Easter, and Easter melted into the season, and Mrs. Courtenay gave a little dinner-party, at which John was one of the guests; and Madeleine was presented on he...

A happy childhood is one of the best gifts that parents have it in their power to bestow; second only to implanting the habit of obedience, which puts the child in training for...

"Put not your trust in brothers," said Di, coming in from a balcony after the departure of the bride and bridegroom, and looking round the crowded drawing-room, where the fictit...

Fifteen years is a long time. What companies of trite reflections crowd the mind as it looks back across the marshes and the fens, and the highlands and the lowlands, and the we...

A profound knowledge of human nature enunciated the decree, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's _house_," and relegated the neighbour's wife to a back seat among the servants...

There was the usual crush at the Speaker's, the usual sprinkling of stars and orders, and splendid uniforms. If it made Di feel limp to look at other people's diamonds, she woul...

"Do you like that man?" said Lord Hemsworth to John one day when he was sitting with him, and Lord Frederick sent up to know whether the latter would see him.

"Di," said Mrs. Courtenay, as they drove away at last, after the usual half-hour's waiting for the carriage, the tedium of which Lord Hemsworth had exerted himself to relieve, "...

"As the foolish moth returning To its Moloch, and its burning, Wheeling nigh, and ever nigher, Falls at last into the fire, Flame in flame; So the soul that doth begin Making or...