Gwendoline

The voice betrayed anxiety. It was breakfast-time, but gaslights shone overhead, glittering on chased silver and on broad blue borders of delicate china. Beyond the panes of the...

"Honora? She does not live here at all. We are visiting her uncle and aunt—dear kind little old people, Mr. Selwyn, but not the very least bit in any august circle of 'society.'...

MR. SELWYN went through a certain stage of perplexity in Lady Halcot's presence, as to the immediate cause of his summons to Riversmouth. Usually her plan was to plunge headlong...

"I know it is so. But sometimes I feel as if we were just leaves tossed to and fro on irresistible waves of circumstances—straws carried away on a strong current."

Gwendoline started up in bed to a sitting posture, suddenly awake to the situation. She had been dimly conscious of her whereabouts for an hour past, conscious of very sick and...

"I DON'T see that your Riversmouth trip has done much for you. If it was a pleasure, you seem disposed to keep the enjoyment to yourself. Certainly you are not looking any the b...

LADY HALCOT sat in her favourite room, beside her davenport, writing letters—an occupation which filled many hours of each day. She was an active old lady, mentally as well as b...

DINNER was just over at Mr. Selwyn's,—a well-appointed and well-ordered meal, always. Mr. Selwyn liked to have things "nice" about him, and he could afford to have them as he wi...

THREE days passed, and an answer came from Lady Halcot, addressed to Gwendoline, in her ladyship's bold handwriting. Gwendoline did not know the writing, but crest and postmark...

"Of course I have nothing to do with deciding," she said, when called into consultation that same evening by her father and mother and sister; "but if I am to give my opinion ho...

The two stood side by side upon a broad platform, near the train which was soon to bear Gwendoline Halcombe to her new home. They were early, for Mr. Halcombe was a nervous man...

Gwendoline had passed a night in her new home, and had risen refreshed, despite some wakeful periods of restless thought. It seemed to her already a very long time since she had...

"I would not write sooner. It seemed better to wait, and not to give you mere first impressions too hastily. Mother promised to let you hear of my safe arrival. Lady Halcot has...

"We must consider how the spirit of idleness can best be met," said Mr. Fosbrook, in his drily polite manner, glancing from Gwendoline to Lady Halcot. "I should not imagine idle...

Gwendoline lived still at the Leys, and had lived there through all these months, with only one slight break of a fortnight at Malvern with Lady Halcot. The old lady rarely care...

"I suppose I am at liberty to dispose of my property as I see fit," she said sharply. "I am not under obligations to explain my reasons to all the world."

ONE June Sunday there came into the parish church a new preacher, never before seen within its precincts. A charity sermon was foretold for that morning, and Mr. Rossiter had su...

SIX weeks had passed since Lady Halcot was first taken ill in church, and she was ill yet. She had not left her room, had, indeed, scarcely quitted her bed, since that day. Mr....

GWENDOLINE'S resolution was quickly taken. A plan of action flashed into her mind, and she unhesitatingly resolved to carry it out. With all her capabilities of passive enduranc...

NOR did she. During many weeks following, the little slim lady neatly accommodated herself to her new position, appealed to Gwendoline on all occasions, came and went as she was...

THE day following was Sunday. Lady Halcot's brief improvement in health seemed to be already on the wane. It was as if she had kept up just long enough for the carrying out of h...

GWENDOLINE, numb and bewildered, could shed no tears. Frith persuaded her to go to bed, and she lay tossing to and fro, with intervals of stupefied stillness, sometimes journeyi...

There was necessarily much to be done and much to be heard, mournful in kind; but Mrs. Halcombe took things into her own hands, sparing her child in every possible way. When the...

TWO days later there was a stir of excitement in the dingy London home from which Gwendoline Halcombe had been so long absent. James, the second lad, opportunely had a half-holi...

"I CANNOT think why Honor does not come in, if only for a minute," Gwendoline said more than once, in the course of her first evening. No one took any particular notice of the r...