Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

From the way in which people talk of the tender passion it might be supposed to be one long dream of bliss; but a little examination of other people's hearts, and the teachings...

The Rev Lawrence Paulby looked rather aghast at the changes Mr Mallow was effecting in the church, and sighed as he thought of the heart-burnings that were ever on the increase;...

Two young men leaning over the park railings on a bright spring morning, when the soot-blackened, well-worn grass that had been suffering from a winter's chronic cold was beginn...

Luke Ross sat on the edge of his table for a few minutes gazing into vacancy, and at times it was with a look akin to triumph that he pondered upon the fall of the man who had b...

Winter came in early that year, but none the less fiercely. Cyril and his young wife stayed on, Sage eagerly agreeing to her aunt's proposal that the visit should be prolonged,...

It was a lovely and sculpturesque attitude, that which was taken up by the "stained-glass virgins," as James Magnus called them, on the night of their first "at home" of the sea...

"Oh, all right, I'll come," said Cyril, impatiently. "Hang it, Frank, if you were half a brother you'd go halves with me, and take me back to your place. I'm sick of this life....

A few friends were expected next night, and busy preparations were being made by Mrs Portlock and her niece, whose pleasant-looking, plump, white arms were bloomed to the elbow...

The morning of Mrs Portlock's party, and Uncle Joseph just returned from his round in the farm, to look smilingly at the preparations that were going on, and very tenderly at Sa...

"I can't go, and I won't go," said Artingale. "It's bad enough to have to be at the church to-morrow and see that poor little lass sacrificed, with everybody looking on smiling...

It was, as Julia Mallow said, a very pretty baby, that of Polly Morrison and her husband, when she spoke to her invalid mother, lying so patiently passive upon the couch in her...

This last delivered in a chorus of shrill voices; and Sage Portlock turned sharply from the semi-circle of children, one and all standing with their toes accurately touching a t...

This was sung in a low-pitched, not unmusical voice, by a stunted, thickly-set lad of seventeen or eighteen, being his version of the well-known "March of the British Grenadiers...

A week had passed since old Michael Ross had been conveyed to his final resting-place, followed by all the tradesmen of the place, and a goodly gathering beside, for in the Wold...

Unmistakably. There could be no doubt of the fact; Julia Mallow had fled from her home that night--half willingly, half forced, always drawn as it were by the strange influence...

Cyril Mallow was right. He had three women to fight upon his side, and he was not long in bringing their power to bear. Petted, spoiled son as he was, literally idolised by the...

It was nearly twelve o'clock, and in spite of her efforts, Sage Portlock's thoughts had wandered a good deal from the work she had in hand. It was the morning upon which Luke Ro...

Decorous mourning had been worn for Frank Mallow, the invalid mother had grown more grey, and the lines in her forehead deeper, while as the Rector thought of the fate of his fi...

"Well, but that's what I like. It's the country air makes one feel so young, and I am so, so glad that we are going to stay at home. I want to know the people. Oh, I was tired o...

To look at the red-brick gabled rectory, with its rose and wistaria-covered trellis-work, the latter at its season one mass of lovely pendent lavender racemes, and the former in...

People had always said that the Rev Eli Mallow was a most fortunate man, but somehow fate gave him his share of reverses. He had been born with the customary number of bones in...

Oh, that bell! A clanging, jangling, minor-sounding bell that always sounded so harsh and melancholy at six o'clock, if the particular morning happened to be dark, wet and wintr...

In a place like Lawford, where every one knew more of his or her neighbours affairs than the individual could possibly know for him or herself, the encounter near Kilby Farm soo...

Cyril Mallow's plan of playing what he called a waiting game had the effect he anticipated, and when he thought that the time was ripe he sent a very tenderly-worded letter, ful...

She had to pass him, and he caught her hand in his, towering over her and making her shiver, as if fascinated by his gaze, as Julia Mallow had been a score of times.

Michael Ross, Luke's father, came soon after with a couple of fellow-townsmen, and their chat about the state of affairs, social and political, that is to say, the state of affa...

There was a troubled heart at the rectory as well as at the farm, where Julia Mallow, in spite of having been so far a firm, matter-of-fact girl, had found her meetings with the...

Her thoughts left the subject the next moment, as she casually glanced at the window, through which the sun was streaming, for it was one of those glorious days when the dying y...

Four years in the life of a busy man soon glide away, and after that lapse there were certain little matters in connection with his late father's property, that Luke seized upon...

There was a dark shadow over Polly Morrison's mind, and she started and shivered at every step when her husband was away at work, but only to brighten up when the great sturdy f...

Only some twenty years ago, but from the streets and surroundings of the place the date might have been in the last century. For Lawford was in an out-of-the-way part of Lincoln...

The visit to town was but a flying one upon this occasion. The poverty at the rectory did not seem to be extreme, for the horses and carriage were sent up for the fortnight's st...

The Lawford people were disappointed, for the Rector thought it better, and the Portlocks made no objection, that the wedding should be as simple as possible, so there were no p...

"Take my hand, Julia," whispered the younger sister; and if, as we read in the old novelists, a glance would kill, the flash of indignant lightning that darted from her bright e...

"Life is very short, my boy, a very little span," seemed to keep repeating itself to Luke Ross's ears, as he walked briskly across the fields trying to regain his composure, har...

"Why not?" said the Churchwarden, slowly. "Come along down, and make the poor girl some warm tea. She's been travelling all night, and has brought the two little ones with her."

"Don't stop me, aunt," cried Sage, excitedly; and, running up-stairs, she shut herself in the room, threw herself upon her knees by her bed, and covered her face with her hands,...

Not many moments before, Artingale had wonderingly asked himself whether Magnus cared for her whom he regarded quite as a sister, and about whose state he was troubled in no sma...

It was a strange stroke of fate that, in spite of several attempts to evade the duty, circumstances so arranged themselves that Luke Ross found himself literally forced, for his...

A certain small world, of which Mr Perry-Morton was one of the shining lights, was deeply agitated, moved to its very volcanic centre, and gave vent to spasmodic utterances resp...

Sympathy! In his bitter state of self-reproach, he would have done anything to serve her. He felt that he could forgive Cyril Mallow, aid him in any way, even to compromising hi...

"I say, why don't you give it up quietly?" roared the speaker to a little bent old man, with a weak, thin, piping voice, and a sharp look that gave him somewhat the air of a ver...

"Harry," he said hoarsely, "you found out my secret when I thought it was hidden deeply away. You are right; your news does give me strength, and I shall live to kill that man."

"Well," said Smithson, the tailor, as he looked up from a square patch that he was inserting in the seat of a fellow-townsman's trousers, "the parson has his faults, and as a fa...

Father had mourned for her, and time had somewhat assuaged his grief; mother had wept in silence upon her weary couch; sister talked less often now of `poor Julia'; brother, whe...

Market morning again at Lawford, and the customary business going on. There were a few pigs in the pens; a larger amount of butter than usual at the cross, some of it holding a...

"Hear, hear!" murmured several voices, as Mr Fullerton glanced round the room, and drew himself up with the pride of a man who believed that he had said something original.

You had to pass through James Magnus's studio to get to his sitting-room, and through the latter to get to his bed-room, and the task was not an easy one. Lord Artingale knew hi...

James Magnus had just struggled to his knees, feeling half mad with rage at his impotence, for it was only now that he fully realised how terribly he had been reduced by his ill...

The Fullerton party proved triumphant in the struggle which ensued, and in spite of the Rector's efforts to produce a better state of things at the boys' school, Mr Humphrey Bon...

That night, just at dark, Joe Biggins walked on tiptoe along the little gravel walk, bearing something beneath his arm; and, as he tapped at the door, the wheelwright rose and l...

The footsteps heard as Luke Ross hurried away were those of the Churchwarden. He had been round the farm according to his custom when his after-dinner pipe was ended, and then s...

"I am, father," he said, with a strange pallor gathering in his face. "I have undertaken the prosecution of Cyril Mallow on behalf, it seems, of Mr Walker's executors, and I sha...

The quiet, half-asleep horse, dreamily hunting for grains of corn amidst a great deal of chaff, threw up its head and made a violent plunge forward, but was checked on the insta...

"Well--well--well--well," said Mrs Portlock, folding her apron full of pleats, as Luke Ross sat talking to her for a while, and ended by telling her his intentions for the futur...

Portlock was right in saying that Luke would be down the next day, for, reproaching himself for his neglect of his father, he hastened down to find him somewhat recovered from t...

"It's not a grand place to look at," he said to himself; "but they tell me he's growing quite a big man. I read for myself what he says to the judges in court sometimes; and it'...

"Better take the lady away, sir," said the warder whom Luke had last addressed, and who had shown some rough feeling, as he beckoned him aside. "There'll be an inquest, of cours...

Cyril had his run for nothing more than to accompany his father, whom he met returning home. But the Rector was in a most genial frame of mind, and father and son came back to t...

There was nothing farther to detain Luke Ross, but he remained in his seat for some time, studying the next case people said, but only that he might dream on in peace, for in th...

Mrs Mallow's cry of horror as, after struggling for the first time for many years into an upright posture, she fell back, fainting, had the effect of bringing father and son bac...

The Gatley domestics too had to make preparations, for Lord Artingale intended to entertain that season. A room was set apart for Mr Magnus the great artist. Miss Mallow's broth...

The two young men had no thought of the consequences that might ensue, as they hurried over the short elastic turf towards where, almost a giant among his kind, Jock Morrison la...

"Now, Harry, once for all, I won't have it," said the little maiden, holding up a tiny white warning finger, which, as they were alone in the drawing-room, Lord Artingale seized...

Artingale could not endorse those words, for he thought it very pleasant to have been alone with Cynthia for the past ten minutes--half an hour-- hour--or two hours--he had not...

Sage trembled as she accompanied the Rector, and in her agitation everything seemed unreal and strange. A mist floated before her eyes, and the room seemed to be sailing round,...

It was an exceedingly awkward task to come from the prosecuting counsel, but Luke did not shrink, striving with all his might, offending several people high in position by his p...

"Martyr--sacrifice!" cried Cynthia, looking at the speaker keenly, and with her bright little face flushing. "Now, Harry, I'll never forgive you. I'm sure you've been keeping so...

If one could but bring oneself to the belief, there is only a slight difference between day and night, and that difference is that in the latter case there is an absence of ligh...

It was as if nature sorrowed o'er the scene, for as the encounter took place the rich, warm glow of the winter sunset passed away, and with the black clouds rising in the west c...

If the Rector was placid and calm once more, so was not Luke Ross, whose pulses still throbbed more heavily than was their wont, as he thought of the old man's words, and then,...