Heart and Cross

But who can tell what is to happen within twenty-four hours? When I left my dressing-room next morning, I found Derwent lingering in the corridor outside, waiting for me. He car...

The first visit which Bertie was able to make was to the cottage--to see Mrs. Harley, as he said, gravely--but I fear he did not get a very satisfactory reception. He told me he...

“I suppose, Clare,” said Mr. Crofton to me one morning at breakfast, “that Alice Harley has made up her mind, like somebody I once knew, to live for other people, and on no acco...

This time of anxiety was one which, in that great common interest and grief, drew many people together who had little sympathy with each other in ordinary times. Many a close, p...

“Well, really!” said little Mrs. Sedgwick, bridling with offended virtue, “I don’t think I am very hard upon a little innocent flirting--sometimes, you know, there’s no harm in...

It was once more spring when Bertie returned. Spring--Easter--that resurrection time which came to our hearts with a more touching force when we received home into our peaceful...

When we returned to the drawing-room after dinner, we found, hidden in a distant corner, with books and portfolios, and stereoscopes blocking up the table near him, Johnnie Harl...

Derwent had not yet returned, and I could understand perfectly why he waited, uneasy for further news, or at least for some explanation of that which we had already heard. I wai...

Very shortly after our little party separated, it was time to go back to London to Derwent’s treadmill; our holiday was over--and as Alice had positively declined my invitation...

The next morning was Easter Sunday. I have no doubt Mr. Reredos would have been glad enough to add a private joy of his own to the rejoicings of the festival, and might not have...

It may be allowed to me to confess that I watched during the remainder of that day with a little natural, but extremely absurd curiosity to see “what effect” our conversation ha...

That evening I had the satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of beholding a very similar condition of things to that which had occupied my attention in my own house at Easter. All t...

“Who are we to have, Clare?--let us hear. You don’t suppose that my mind, weighed down with the responsibilities of law-making, can remember everything, eh?--even my wife’s gues...

“Oh, no, there’s nothing the matter,” said Johnnie, in such a tone as a wild beast making a snap at one might have used if it had possessed the faculty of words. “I was there be...

“I am surprised,” said Mr. Reredos, as he drank his coffee beside me, “to hear from Mr. Maurice Harley that he’s not in orders. I really felt so sure that he must be that I did...

The next day after, being the Saturday, our little Easter party assembled; first our neighbors the Sedgwicks, who were a party in themselves. Ten years before, Hugh Sedgwick had...

“Now, if I had the luck to hold a confidential talk with Maurice, I should have gone round the entire Harley family,” said I to myself the next morning, “and be in the secret of...

We stayed all that night at Waterflag, as we always did when we dined with the Sedgwicks, and of course I was subjected to a long private and confidential conversation with Mrs....

when one has so many nephews and nieces--and why should I go to London, Mrs. Crofton? It is all very well for Clara--Clara is in circumstances, of course, that make it convenien...

Mr. Crofton was greatly given to keeping birthdays; he was not a man to be daunted by that coldest and vulgarest commonplace, which warns us with lugubrious mock solemnity that...

That evening--it was the first of her visit to Hilfont, and a perfectly natural thing, considering the long affection between us--I paid Alice a long visit in her own room. I mi...

I know no reason why I should begin my story of the fortunes of the Harleys by a description of my own son. Perhaps it is just because there is no reason whatever that I feel so...

And after all, the Rector was premature--we were all premature, lamenting for him over whom we were so speedily to rejoice. When Derwent put the dispatch into my hand (he did no...

Another long period of home quietness, but great anxiety followed this. Bertie, of course, would not return while the crisis of affairs in India had not yet been determined; and...

“Why will not you come with us to London, Alice?” said I. “Mr. Crofton wishes it almost as much as I do. Such a change would do you good, and I do not need to tell you how pleas...