Dimbie and I—and Amelia

A day has come, still, cold and grey, when you say, "There is snow in the air," and you are not sorry. The first snow is curiously attractive. Before, you are a little doubtful...

I find, in accordance with Nanty's advice, that I kept Dimbie well out of the last chapter; but he's bound to figure pretty largely in this, for he's had a birthday. A birthday...

"Just as it should be," said Nanty. "A wedding at all times is to me a depressing spectacle; and when accompanied by a sound of brass and tinkling of cymbals, and shawms, and ri...

"Strange that the mind when fraught With a passion so intense One would think that it well Might drown all life in the eye,-- That it should, by being so over-wrought, Suddenly...

On several different occasions of late has Amelia had the pleasure of reaching out the best china to a shrill accompaniment of "Now we shan't be long," for the few select reside...

Who could be sad on an afternoon such as this? Is the witchery of spring with us once more? we ask; for it has rained for a week, and now every faded green thing--leaf and grass...

The afternoon was waning, and Dimbie and I were beginning to wake up and trying to ignore the fact that Amelia was watching us through the ever useful point of vantage, the pant...

I am under the apple tree trying to be busy. In front of me lies a waif and stray garment--a flannel petticoat. There is no house mending to do--everything is new and holeless....

The week has passed at last--in the daytime on leaden feet, on wings of gold in the evening when, as the clock has struck six, Dimbie and happiness have entered my room hand in...

The day has come at last on which Dimbie is to return, and--I am not glad. That I, his wife, should ever write such words seems almost unbelievable. But, oh--I am not ready for...

When I casually mentioned to Nanty--yesterday afternoon over our tea--that I had begun to write a book I was unprepared for her opposition, which almost amounted to a command th...

"Put down your worries," said Nanty, so I must perforce enter Amelia and the kitchen boiler. The boiler won't yield hot water, and Amelia says that isn't her fault, that she was...

I take up my writing again, or rather my book is propped up in front of me, and I wonder how long ago was that. It tires my head to think. My dates are more confused than ever....

"All's right with the world." The long-looked-for letter from Miss Fairbrother has arrived, and she is coming to stay with us. I read out the good news to Dimbie exultantly and...

Very blind, very dense, and downright stupid have I been; and being of the gender called feminine, and presumably supposed to possess the gift of scenting a love affair of even...

The two of them came down the garden path hand in hand. The sun caressed Jane's small, dark head. She wore the pretty, cool, grey gown, and in her belt was tucked a red rose no...

"Why, the women who live round here, of course. I suppose there are one or two knocking about? I saw a lady with thick ankles and a Wellington nose come out of the Old Grange."

"I quite sympathise with you in your desire, which is most reasonable. But were he to alight on the gravel path he might break his leg, and then we should be obliged to have him...

It is said that the young look forward and the old look backward. I am still young enough, I suppose, to live chiefly in the future--a beautiful future, with Dimbie ever as the...

The discussion about Jane's wedding-gown began in that pleasant hour between tea and dinner on the soft edge of the dusk, when the refreshing influence of tea still pervades one...

I said to Dimbie that perhaps we had not been sufficiently grateful to his majesty, that we had begun to take him for granted, and that we should never make the sun feel cheap.

Beyond the fact that I have received a letter from Miss Fairbrother, there seems to be nothing of any real importance to-day to enter in my "daily-round." I call my journal my "...

One of those September days is with us in which the world, like Rip Van Winkle, is very fast asleep. A great stillness broods o'er our little garden. No blade of grass or leaf o...

I said that mother and I were going to have a peaceful and happy time together--that we should chat in the mornings, doze in the afternoons, and discuss Amelia in the evenings....

Dimbie went very white when I told him. He walked to the window and stared for some time at the gathering darkness. I had chosen this hour, knowing my face would be in shadow. I...

The chestnut in the frog-pond field at the bottom of the garden is holding forth eager arms, crowned with little sticky, swelling buds, to the white, warm light. The snowdrops a...

Nurse has gone, and I am not overwhelmed with grief. I could quite see that within another week the kitchen would have been turned into a pugilistic ring, and she and Amelia wou...

The house is very quiet. Jane and Dimbie are out in the woods gathering sprays of red-tinted brambles, briony, traveller's joy, bracken, which though fading is of that golden ti...

I am very weary. In the old days, before my accident, it was my boast that I was never tired. Perhaps the exertion of conciliating Peter, of trying to keep the peace between him...

And so I have settled down to my year of inactivity, of schooling my temper, of a constant looking for and waiting for Dimbie, and of a perpetual wrestling with Amelia.