Doctor Cupid: A Novel

The dinner is over--the first _tete-a-tete_ dinner that John and Peggy have ever shared. To dine _tete-a-tete_ with her in her own still house, amid her old and homely surroundi...

It is May morning, but May morning as yet in early childhood--a radiant infancy that but few persons comparatively are awake to see. It has not struck five; and yet on the top o...

There are not so many passengers by the 5.30 train as to hinder its being punctual. It is almost faithful to its minute. So far--it can't be said to be very far--fortune favours...

'We'll lose ourselves in Venus' Groves of Mirtle, When every little bird shall be a Cupid, And sing of Love and Youth; each wind that blows And curls the velvet leaves shall bre...

It is Whit-Sunday. The morning service is over. The parish has had an opportunity of admiring Peggy's nosegays, and of having their nostrils comforted by the scent of her lilac...

She remains behind without a laugh. She is not, however, left long to her own reflections, for scarcely is young Ducane out of sight before Prue reappears. Her eyes are dried, a...

'Ox--ford! Ox--ford!' Her goal is reached; and as she has no luggage, and is therefore independent of the scanty-numbered and not particularly civil porters, in two minutes afte...

A wretched month follows--a month of miserable misery--misery, that is, that springs from no God-sent misfortune; that has none of that fateful greatness to which we bow our hea...

If there is one hour of the day at which the little Red House looks conspicuously better than another, it is that young one when the garden grass is still wet to the travelling...

A fortnight later, and Peggy is alone. Prue has gone after all--gone to that paradise, in yearning for which she seemed to be stooping towards the grave; she has gone to empty j...

The Whitsun garlands that had so gaily wound about the pillars of Roupell Church have long ago been taken down, dead and faded. Poor Peggy has once again stood all day on her la...

The Harboroughs' and Talbot's invitation to the Manor had been for a fortnight. Of that fortnight fully a week has already elapsed. To the house which comes next in the Harborou...

The autumn is throwing down its red and amber tributes before other feet besides Margaret's; before Betty's, before Talbot's. It does not, however, rain the same shower on both....

But the execution of Mr. Ducane's duty-dances is apparently no short task, nor one lightly or quickly accomplished. But few of them, as it turns out, are danced in the ball-room...

_For ever!_ All through the wintry day they hammer at his ears--those two small words that take up such a little space on a page, and yet cover eternity. There is nothing that d...

The Hartleys are wise enough to avoid the error so common amongst amateur actors and managers, of prolonging their treat until pleasure is turned into weariness. They are obviou...

It is Sunday. The _Lapwing_ is ploughing her way through a short chopping sea in the Bay of Biscay; and here at home, at Roupell, the people are issuing in a little quiet stream...

'I am not mad,--I would to heaven I were! For then 'tis like I should forget myself: Oh, if I could, what grief should I forget! Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou...

It is obvious that, whatever else he may be, John Talbot is, with the exception of Mr. Evans, the man of smallest rank in the room, since to him is assigned the honour of leadin...

No one can be in profounder ignorance than is Peggy of the fact of any one breathing passionate sighs towards her from Downing Street. The only news that she has heard of John T...

'Yon meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes, More by your number than your light; You common people of the skies, What are you when the moon shall rise?'

Though she has begun so early, Prue is writing nearly all day; writing sitting up in bed--writing when the eastern sun is pouring in his rays from the gates of day--writing when...

as the pretty old song obliquely puts it. Such of the parish as are not Dissenters, drunkards, or the mothers of young babies (it does not leave a very large margin), have been...

In order perhaps to give an ostensible reason for her last flying visit to the empty Manor, or more likely (since she is not much in the habit of testing the value of her action...

She is gone--passed out into the blackness of the winter evening--gone before Peggy, paralysed, half-stunned as she is, can arrest her. Was she ever here? The doubt flashes into...

'At Charing Cross, hard by the way Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay, There is a house with stairs; And there did I see coming down Such folk as are not in our town; Forty...

John Talbot spends a wretched night. He does not owe this to the fact of Betty's infantine gambols, her ogles and cats'-cradles with Freddy Ducane through the previous evening;...

'To one that has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair And open face of heaven--to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament.'

'Our Master hath a garden which fair flowers adorn, There will I go and gather, both at eve and morn: Nought's heard therein but Angel Hymns with harp and lute, Loud trumpets an...

'And such a boat!' The words ring in Peggy's ears through her homeward walk. After all, she had heard no new thing. That Freddy was an unseaworthy craft to which to commit the p...

'At length burst in the argent revelry, With plume, tiara and all rich array, Numerous as shadows haunting fairily The brain new stuffed in youth with triumphs gay Of old Romance.'

Whitsun is here. Again the tired workers are let loose. Again the great cities pour out their grimy multitudes over the fair green country, upon which, year by year, day by day...

The Beast Party is over. It has not differed materially from its predecessors, though it may perhaps glory in the bad pre-eminence of having left even more ill-feeling and morti...

Safely out on the terrace in the moonlight! Not, it is true, a great wash of moonlight such as went billowing over the earth when she paid her former night-visit to milady's gar...

'Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison (Who sees them is undone); For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Catherine pear, The side that's...

'God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed it is the Purest of Humane pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirit of Man; Without which Buildings and Pallaces...

Talbot looks round apprehensively. Heaven send that no one, neither meddlesome Jacob, nor gaping boy, nor screaming maids, nor--worst of all--Peggy herself, may come up till he...

'There! I do not think that the joys and sorrows of living in a little house under the shadow of a big one were ever more lucidly set forth,' says an elder sister, holding up th...

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of dinner, too; and towards that dinner, about to be spread at the Big House, the inmates of the little one are hastening on foot through the park. Brou...

Again silence, and again it is broken by Margaret. After all, she cannot be conspicuously rude even to him in her own house. It is, indeed, one of the problems of life, 'When is...