Fan : The Story of a Young Girl's Life

With a mind agitated with a variety of emotions--her still active resentment, grief at her loss, and a burning sense of shame at the thought that her too ready response to Eden'...

On the beach at Sidmouth, about noon one day in the last week of November, a day of almost brilliant sunshine despite the season, with a light dry west wind crinkling the surfac...

When Fan awoke, physically well and refreshed by her long slumber, it had been light some time, with such dim light as found entrance through the clouded panes of one small wind...

To Fan's mind there was no note of warning in that little vague complimentary speech, and she thought nothing at all about it. It is quite impossible for a man to talk all day w...

For several months after that hasty and somewhat inauspicious marriage--“unsanctified,” Mrs. Churton would have said--it seemed as if the course of events had effectually parted...

The next few days, although very sweet and full to Fan, were uneventful; then, early on a Wednesday evening, once more Miss Starbrow made her sit with her at her bedroom fire an...

At the last moment, when all the preparations were complete, Miss Starbrow determined to accompany Fan to her new home, and, after dropping her there, to pay a long-promised vis...

On the next morning, after a sharp frost, the sun shone brightly as in spring. Fan was up early and enjoyed her breakfast, notwithstanding the late supper, and not in the least...

Constance did not reply immediately to Fan's letter, which came to her with the photograph, but first completed her preparations for leaving Notting Hill. A visit from her frien...

A Misty evening in mid-October; a top room in one of the small dingy houses on the north side of Moon Street, its floor partially covered with pieces of drugget carpet trodden i...

Fan did not fail to be at Dawson Place at the time, or a little before the time, appointed. “Oh, I hope that girl won't open the door when I ring,” she said to herself, giving t...

One afternoon, returning from Westbourne Grove, where she had been out to buy flowers for the table, on coming into the hall, Fan was surprised to hear Miss Starbrow in the dini...

The unbroken greyness out of doors, and the gusty wind sending the dead curled-up leaves whirling through the chilly air, or racing over the pavement of Dawson Place, made Miss...

The next few days were devoted to sightseeing under Merton's guidance, and a better-informed cicerone they could not well have had. The little cloud between the girls had quite...

The lawyer's visit had given her something to think of and to do; forthwith she began to prepare for her fortnight's stay at Kingston with much zeal and energy. It was a great d...

Fan read the sketch, but her mind was too much occupied with all she had just heard, in addition to the joy she felt at having recovered her friend, to pay much attention to it....

A couple of days after the funeral Fan, accompanied by her friend, returned to London, and the rooms she had occupied in Quebec Street. Fortunately for her young lodger's peace...

A fortnight went by. Fan, occupied in her shop and happy enough, except once when she encountered the grisly manager's terrible eyes on her: then she trembled and glanced down a...

After Merton's departure from Eyethorne things drifted back to their old state at Wood End House, the slight change in Constance becoming less and less perceptible, until the ti...

“Mother,” she began, “I have got something very unpleasant to tell you. Miss Starbrow has written to Fan, casting her off. She tells her to remain here until her year is up, and...

Miss Starbrow did not leave London after all, but day followed day only to find her in the same unsettled mind as at first. Having no one else to quarrel with, she quarrelled wi...

Mr. Tytherleigh was already at her lodgings, and seeing her arrive, he hurried out to ask her not to alight. Mr. Travers, he said, wished her to move into better apartments; he...

That troubled evening was followed by a quiet period, lasting from Wednesday to Saturday, during which there were no brawls indoors, and Fan was free of the hateful task of goin...

Nearly the whole of Fan's remaining time before going to Kingston was passed at Dawson Place. Her happiness was perfect, like the sunshine she had found resting on that dear spo...

For the next two days Fan was continually on the tiptoe of expectation, shortening her walks for fear of missing Mary, and not going to Dawson Place, and still her friend came n...

To Fan no comfort came that evening, and an hour after supper she went to bed to get warm, without seeing her mistress, who had returned to dinner. Next day she was no better of...

For the rest of the day peace reigned at Wood End House. Mr. Churton, whose absence at mealtime was never made the subject of remark, did not return to tea when the three ladies...

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday passed sadly and slowly enough, and at five o'clock on the evening of the last day Fan was told at St. Mary's--that Margaret Harrod was dead. During...

Two days later Fan returned to her apartments, and shortly after arriving there received a letter from Captain Horton, giving her an account of what he had been doing for her si...

That decision of Fan's to remain at home had really come with a little surprise on Mrs. Churton; for although it was what she had hoped, the hope had been a faint one, and the p...

Next day the friends met at Eden's club, and after lunching they had an hour's conversation in the smoking-room. But their characters of the previous evening now seemed to be re...

The result of Fan's second day's search for employment proved no more promising than the first. She wandered about the Westbourne Park district, going as far west as Ladbroke Gr...

Before Fan's visit came to an end, the Travers gave a dinner to some of their Kingston friends and neighbours. The hour was seven, and all the guests, save one, arrived at the r...

Not until the end of November did anything important occur to make a break in Fan's happy, and on the whole peaceful, life in Dawson Place; then came an eventful day, which rude...

The Monday morning, to which Fan had been looking forward with considerable apprehension, brought no new and frightful experience: she was not caught up and instantly plunged fa...

“But why at this distance from London?” objected Mary. “According to that, our pleasure would have been greater if we had met them at the Canary Islands, and greater still at Ho...

A fortnight later, one hot afternoon, Fan was reading beside the open window of the dining-room. After dinner Mrs. Churton had given her _The Pleasures of Hope_, in a slim old o...

In London once more! It was Fan's birth-place, the home she had known continuously up till one short year ago; yet now on her return how strange, how foreign to her soul, how ev...

Returned from her visit, Miss Starbrow appeared for a time to have recovered her serenity, and proceeded to change her dress for dinner, softly humming an air to herself as she...

Fan was up early next morning--the ringing concert of the orchard, so different from the dull rumble of the streets, had chased away sleep, and all desire to sleep--and punctual...

One afternoon in early August Fan accompanied Mrs. Churton on a visit to some cottages on the further side of Eyethorne village; she went gladly, for they were going to see Mrs....

Before leaving Fan at her own door Mr. Eden did not neglect to make a mental note of the number, although to make it out was not easy owing to the obscure veil that time, weathe...

Mrs. Churton was quickly made aware of the now in one sense improved relations between the girls when they returned from their walk; and with that new hope in her heart she was...

Fan resolved to employ Captain Horton again, and as it was too late in the day to see him at his office on her way home, she wrote that evening, asking him to find her a suitabl...

Great as the human adaptiveness is at the age at which Fan then was, that loving-kindness of her mistress--of one so proud and beautiful above all women, and, to the girl's humb...

On Sunday Fan accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Churton to morning service, and thought it strange that her teacher did not go with them. In the evening the party was differently compose...

On their way home the conversation of the girls turned chiefly on their encounter with Mr. Chance. Constance displayed an unusual amount of feminine curiosity, and asked a great...

On the very next day Miss Starbrow was herself again apparently, and the old life was resumed just where it had been broken off. But although outwardly things went on in the old...