Fresh Leaves

The piano was immediately closed by the young performer, and the music-stool put carefully away, that the new-comer might have an unrestricted choice of seats; a wide space was...

Mother’s room! How we look back to it in after years, when she who sanctified it is herself among the sanctified. How well we remember the ample cushioned chair, with its all-em...

“I have a great mind to go to bed,” said Susy Wade, yawning; “I’m not sleepy, either, but I don’t know what do do with myself; there’s that tiresome Mr. Doe down stairs--he croa...

“I think it must be time for Henry to come home,” and the speaker glanced at a little gold watch on the mantel. “What a noise those children are making. I told them to keep stil...

The bleak winds of March were abroad, causing even the healthy and rugged to shrink from their piercing breath, and fold more closely around their shivering limbs the warm garme...

Mrs. Wade sat propped up in bed by pillows, for the nature of her disease rendered repose impossible; dreadful spasms--the forerunners of dissolution--at intervals convulsed her...

It was a mad freak of dame Nature to fashion Mary Ford after so dainty a model, and then open her blue eyes in a tumble-down house in Peck-lane. But Mary cares little for that....

“Ah, Trask, how are you? Glad to see you,” said Jacob, with one of his vice-like shakes of the hand. “Come for a rubber at whist? That’s right. I was thinking to-day, how long i...

“I?” exclaimed the young lady. “I? Is it possible you can be so stupid, mamma, as to suppose I would waste a thought on Percy Lee! I assure you he offered himself to Mary Ford i...

But before Lucy could answer, she again relapsed into stupor. Another hour passed--there was reason in her glance. “Mamma? Percy--take me to him”--said Mary, with a burst of tea...

As Mary tottered through the door, Percy raised his head, and, with a stifled groan, fell at her feet. Pressing his lips to the hem of her robe, he waved her off with one hand,...

The Bluff Hill penitentiary was called “a model prison.” A “modern Howard” was said to have planned it, and passed his oracular judgment, ratified by the authorities of the Stat...

They who have suffered from the world’s malice, know that the most simple words may be made to convey an insult, by the tone in which they are uttered. Lucy Ford was naturally u...

Jacob Ford’s new home was a little cottage, just on the outskirts of the city; for Lucy said, “maybe the flowers, and the little birds, and the green grass might tempt Mary out...

“Is it possible you care for that girl yet, Tom? A rejected lover, too? Where’s your spirit, man? Pshaw--there’s many a fairer face than Mary Ford’s; besides, she is more than h...

Summer had danced by--the chill wind whistled through the trees--the nuts were dropping in showers, and the leaves rusted beneath the traveler’s foot; the golden-rod and barberr...

“Kill time! You--a bridegroom of six months! Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. You remember I told you you would soon weary of your new toy. A six-months’ bridegroom!” and...

“Day dawned--within a curtained room, Filled to faintness with perfume, A lady lay at point of doom. Morn broke--an infant saw the light, But for the lady, fair and bright, She...

“The top o’ the mornin’ to yez, Bridget,” said Pat, poking his head into the kitchen. “Is the ould lady up yet? Sorry a plight masther was in the night--dhrunk as a baste--and h...

The bell sounded at Bluff Hill Prison, to call the prisoners to their tasks. They passed out from their cells and crossed, two by two, the prison-yard to their workshops. Percy...

“I like to live here,” said little Fanny, running up to Lucy, with her sun-bonnet hanging at the back of her neck; her cheeks glowing, and her apron full of acorns, pebbles, pin...

“Very well done; button-holes strong and even, lining smooth; stitching, like rows of seed pearl. This is no apprentice work,” said Mr. John Pray, as he held Lucy’s vests up to...

Rain--rain--rain; patter, patter. No sunshine to help Lucy’s purblind eyes in stitching the dark vests; no sunshine to kiss open the buttercups for Fanny. The birds took short a...

“Good morning, Zekiel,” said John Pray. “Glad to see you--you must tell the old lady to go ahead and finish this pile of vests in a twinkling; business is brisk now. Why, what’s...

Ah! there is Mrs. Quip’s head, poked out of the north chamber window. A sure sign that it is five o’clock to the minute. Now she scuds across the yard, making a prodigious flutt...

“Fanny, what pains you are taking with your hair to-day!” said Kate. “Is this Cousin John who has written you such interminable letters from ‘El-Dorado,’ to turn out, after all,...

Was this “little Fanny?” this tall, graceful creature of seventeen, the little thing who bade him good-by at Mrs. Chubb’s door, ten years since, with her pinafore stuffed in the...

“A gin-sling, waiter! Strong, hot, and quick; none of your temperance mixtures for me; AND waiter, here, a beef-steak smothered in onions; AND waiter, some crackers and cheese,...

Not a word was spoken on the way; even the rattling Kate vailed her merry eyes under their soft lashes, and her woman’s heart, true to itself, sent up a prayer for the orphan’s...