Esther : a book for girls

They told me afterward that this was a daring feat, and fraught with awful peril, for in that painful groping in the darkness I might have lost my balance and fallen back into t...

"What is the matter, Essie?" cried Dot, piteously, as I held him in that tight embrace without speaking. "We were naughty to come, yes, I know, but you said I was to take care o...

Uncle Geoffrey had long wished her to make the effort, but she had made some excuse and put it off from day to day; but at last Allan took it into his head to manage things afte...

What a mercy it is that we are not permitted to see the course of events--that we take moment by moment from the Father's hand, not knowing what lies before us!

But the sickroom was a different place now, when we had Allan's cheery visits to enliven our long evenings. A brighter element seemed introduced into the house. I wondered if Ca...

The six weeks passed only too rapidly, but Dot and I were equally delighted when Miss Ruth petitioned for a longer extension of absence, to which dear mother returned a willing...

I was almost ashamed of myself for being so happy, and yet it was a sober kind of happiness too. I did not forget my father, and I missed Allan with an intensity that surprised...

Ah me! it was sad to say good-by to the dear old home of our childhood; to go round to our haunts, one by one, and look our last at every cherished nook and corner; to bid farew...

I had no idea Miss Ruth could talk as she did that night. She seemed to open her heart to me with the simplicity of a child, giving me a deeper insight into a very lovely nature...

Oh, what changes! what incredible changes! We must leave Combe Manor at once. With the exception of a few hundred pounds that had been mother's portion, the only dowry that her...

Months passed over, and found us the same busy, tranquil little household. I used to wonder how my letters could interest Allan so much as he said they did; I could find so litt...

The great secret of Uncle Geoffrey's influence with people was a certain quiet undemonstrative sympathy. He did not talk much; he was rather given to letting people alone, but h...

I was so young and healthy that I soon recovered from the shock, and in a few days I had regained strength and color. Mr. Lucas had gone to see mother, and the day after his vis...

What a clever head Allan had! I always said there was more in that boy than half a dozen Freds! To think of such a scheme coming into his mind, and driving us all nearly wild wi...

I was always sorry that my name was Esther; not that I found fault with the name itself, but it was too grave, too full of meaning for such an insignificant person. Some one who...

I half hoped that she meant to help me, but she sat down by the window and said, with a sigh, how tired she was; and certainly her eyes had a weary look.

"What on earth are we to do without you, child?" he grumbled, wiping his eye-glasses. "There, go along with you. If ever a girl deserved a good husband and got it, you are the o...

"We lead regular hermit lives at the Brambles, away from the haunts of men," observed Miss Ruth; but I was too much occupied to answer her. Dot and I were peeping through the wi...

One other conversation lingered long in my memory, and it took place on my last evening at the Cedars. On the next day I was going home to mother and Dot, and yet I sighed! Oh,...

Miss Ruth insisted on giving me a week's holiday, that I might avail myself of Allan's society; and as dear mother still persisted that I looked pale and in need of change, Alla...

We had had an old-fashioned winter--weeks of frost to delight the hearts of the young skaters of Milnthorpe; clear, cold bracing days, that made the young blood in our veins tin...

She was somewhat good-looking, but decidedly over-dressed. Early as it was, she was in a heavily-flounced silk dress, a little the worse for wear. I guessed that first day, with...

"It is her own baby abbreviation of Florence," she returned, pausing on the landing to take breath, for even that slight ascent seemed to weary her. She was quite pale and panti...

The following afternoon Uncle Geoffrey, Allan, and I, started for Milnthorpe. Youthful grief is addicted to restlessness--it is only the old who can sit so silently and weep; it...