Guild Court: A London Story

Mrs. Boxall was the mother of Richard Boxall, the "governor" of Thomas Worboise. Her John had been the possessor of a small landed property, which he farmed himself, and upon wh...

Mr. Sargent's next application to Mr. Worboise, made on the morning after the decision of the court in his favor, shared the fate of all his preceding attempts. Mr. Worboise smi...

Mrs. Morgenstern looked splendid as she moved about among the hot-house plants, arranging them in the hall, on the stairs, and in the drawing-rooms. She judged, and judged right...

I flatter myself that my reader is not very much interested in Thomas; I never meant he should be yet. I confess, however, that I am now girding up my loins with the express int...

When Thomas left Rotherhithe with Jim Salter, he had no idea in his head but to get away somewhere. Like the ostrich, he wanted some sand to stick his head into. But wherever he...

One evening Lucy was sitting as usual with Mattie, for the child had no friends but her and grannie; her only near relative was a widowed sister of her father, whom she did not...

I do not know if my reader is half as much interested in Mattie as I am. I doubt it very much. He will, most probably, like Poppie better. But big-headed, strange, and conceited...

When their native red began to bloom again upon the cheeks of Poppie, she began to grow restless, and the heart of the tailor to grow anxious. It was very hard for a wild thing...

When Lucy left the room, with her lover--if lover he could be called--alone in it, her throat felt as if it would burst with the swelling of something like bodily grief. She did...

Thomas woke the next morning with a well-deserved sense of something troubling him. This too was a holiday, but he did not feel in a holiday mood. It was not from any fear that...

When the maid opened the door to him she stared like an idiot, yet she was in truth a woman of sense; for, before Thomas had reached the foot of the stairs, she ran after him, s...

Now it had so happened that Mr. Molken had caught sight of Tom as he returned from his visit to his mother, and had seen him go into Mr. Fuller's house. His sailor's dress pique...

At last the day arrived that Lucy and her grandmother had fixed for removing into the bookseller's house. The furniture was all Mrs. Boxall's own, though, if Mr. Worboise had th...

Notwithstanding the good-humored answer Thomas had made to Mattie, her words stuck to him and occasioned him a little discomfort. For if the bookseller's daughter, whose shop la...

When Tom left the office he walked into Mr. Kitely's shop, for he was afraid lest Mr. Stopper should see him turn up to Guild Court. He had almost forgotten Mr. Kitely's behavio...

For some days Mr. Boxall was so uneasy about Mary that he forgot his appointment with Mr. Worboise. At length, however, when a thaw had set in, and she had began to improve, he...

As soon as the door closed behind them, Mr. Fuller turned to Tom, saying, as he took a chair near him, "I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Worboise. I have long wanted to have a litt...

After this Thomas made rapid progress in the favor of Captain Smith. He had looked upon him as a landlubber before, with the contempt of his profession; but when he saw that, cl...

Thomas descended to breakfast, feeling fresh and hopeful. The weather had changed during the night, and it was a clear, frosty morning, cold blue cloudless sky and cold gray lea...

Mr. Spelt sat in his watch-tower, over the head of patiently cobbling Mr. Dolman, reflecting. He too was trying to cobble--things in general, in that active head of his beneath...

It is but justice to Thomas Worboise to mention that he made no opportunities of going to his "governor's" house after this. But the relations of the families rendered it imposs...

In the month of November, not many years ago, a young man was walking from Highbury to the City. It was one of those grand mornings that dawn only twice or thrice in the course...

The next day, Thomas had made up his mind not to go near Guild Court; but in the afternoon Mr. Stopper himself sent him to bring an old ledger from the floor above Mrs. Boxall's...

During all this time, when his visits to Lucy were so much interrupted by her attendance upon Mattie, Thomas had not been doing well. In fact, he had been doing gradually worse....

One bright morning, when the flags in the passage were hot to her feet, and the shoes she had lost in the snow-storm had not the smallest chance of recurring to the memory of Po...

Lucy was not up stairs with her grandmother when Thomas went into the room. She had arrived some time before, and had ran across to the bookseller's to put Mattie to bed, accord...

The Saturday following Tom's departure Lucy had a whole holiday, and she resolved to enjoy it. Not much resolution was necessary for that; for everything now was beautiful, and...

Mattie had expected Lucy to call for her in the forenoon and take her out to Wyvil Place to see Miriam. Spending the morning with her father in the shop, amidst much talk, condu...

Mr. Fuller's main bent of practical thought was how to make his position in the church as far as possible from a sinecure. If the church was a reality at all, if it represented...

When Lucy came home the night before, she found her grandmother sitting by the fire, gazing reproachfully at the coals. The poor woman had not yet reconciled herself to her alte...

"I don't know, father," answered Tom, who did not regard the proposal as involving any great probability of enjoyment; "my holiday is coming so soon that I should not like to as...

The next day the sun shone brilliantly upon the snow as Thomas walked to the counting-house. He was full of pleasant thoughts, crossed and shadowed by a few of a different kind....

The office was closed, the shutters were up in the old-fashioned way on the outside, the lights extinguished, and Mr. Stopper, who was always the last to leave, was gone. The na...

The storm of that night beat furiously against poor Mattie's window, and made a dreadful tumult in her big head. When her father went into her little room, as was his custom eve...

As soon as he had resolved upon this he set out. There was plenty of time. He would walk. Tired as he was beginning to be, motion was his only solace. He walked through Hampstea...

One sultry evening in summer, Lucy was seated at her piano, which had its place in Mr. Kitely's back parlor, near the black oak cabinet, but she was not playing. She had just be...

Mr. Boxall, with some difficulty, arising from reluctance, made his wife acquainted with the annoyance occasioned him by the discovery of the fact that Tom Worboise had not even...

Can I hope to move my readers to any pitiful sympathy with Mrs. Worboise, the whole fabric of whose desires was thus sliding into an abyss? That she is not an interesting woman,...

That large room in Guild Court, once so full of aged cheerfulness and youthful hope, was now filled with an atmosphere of both moral and spiritual perturbation. The first effect...

The whole ground under Thomas's feet was honey-combed and filled with combustible matter. A spark dropped from any, even a loving hand, might send everything in the air. It need...

Lucy was so full of Mattie and what Mr. Fuller had said that she told Mrs. Morgenstern all about it before Miriam had her lesson. After the lesson was over, Mrs. Morgenstern, wh...

Tom went home the next night with a racking headache. Gladly would he have gone to Lucy to comfort him, but he was too much ashamed of his behavior to her the night before, and...

To account in some measure for the condition in which we find Tom at the commencement of my story, it will be better to say a word here about his mother. She was a woman of weak...

She and her priest belonged to a class more numerous than many of my readers would easily believe, a great part of whose religion consists in arrogating to themselves exclusive...

Molken welcomed him even more heartily than usual. After a few minutes' conversation they went out together: having no plan of his own, Thomas was in the hands of any one who ha...

She found the two old women, of whom Mattie still seemed the older, seated together at their tea. Not a ray of the afternoon sun could find its way into the room. It was dusky a...

Between Mr. Spelt's roost and the house called No. 1 of Guild Court there stood a narrow house, as tall as the rest, which showed by the several bell-pulls, ranged along the sid...

I will not linger over the last of my story. Mr. Sargent was delighted at the turn affairs had taken--from a business point of view, I mean. The delight was greatly tempered by...

Thomas did not sleep much that night, and was up betimes in the morning. Mr. Fuller had risen before him, however, and when Thomas went down stairs, after an invigorating cold b...

When Mr. Worboise found that Thomas did not return that night, he concluded at once that he had made up his mind to thwart him in his now cherished plan, to refuse the daughter...

Although Mrs. Boxall, senior, was still far from well, yet when the morning of Mrs. Morgenstern's gathering dawned, lovely even in the midst of London, and the first sun-rays, w...

Thus things went on for the space of about three weeks. Tom went to see Lucy almost every night, and sometimes stayed late; for his mother was still from home, and his father wa...

Thomas resumed his place in the office, occupying his old stool, and drawing his old salary, upon which he now supported himself in comfort and decency. He took a simple lodging...

When he was shown into his father's room he was writing a letter. Looking up and seeing Tom he gave a grin--that is, a laugh without the smile in it--handed him a few of his fin...

"I tell you what, brother," said the captain, "you're addling good brains with overwork. You won't make half so much money if you're too greedy after it. You don't look the same...

My reader will know better than Lucy or Mr. Fuller what Thomas was after. Having only a hope, he did not like to say much, and therefore, as well as that he might not lose the c...