Her fairy prince

The first speaker, Mr., or Captain Garth, as he styled himself, was a man of medium height, inclined to stoutness and of florid complexion, with bloodshot blue eyes, plentiful p...

One gets used to a great many things in three years, and it was three years since Laline, a forlorn little figure in deep mourning, had stood on the deck of a Folkestone steamer...

"Your daughter has. What are you making of her? A household drudge--nothing more or less! It's no good coming any of the parental love-business with me, Garth. I've got to marry...

How kind they had all seemed! Wallace Armstrong was gentleness itself, and there was in his manner towards her a blending of protecting care with playful admiration peculiarly f...

Thus far had Wallace Armstrong proceeded in his unique love-making, when the lady he meant to wed in a few days' time disconcerted him by bursting into a hearty peal of laughter.

Laline had heard the words somewhere, and remembered them as she woke very early on the thirtieth of August and saw the rain pouring in a steady flood upon the sun-dried earth.

On a winter afternoon in London, rather more than four years after Laline's flight from Boulogne, a beautiful young woman stood in the ground-floor sitting-room of a London lodg...

"Aunt Cissy never eats before people," the latter explained. "She thinks it's a great pity we have to eat at all. She's a dear sweet thing, and I quite agree with her that eatin...

That night, when Clare Cavan returned at midnight from her reception, she thanked the yawning Susan for sitting up for her, and softly proceeded to the top floor, where were thr...

She stood as though paralysed, with her back to the window, through which the last rays of a fast-fading sunset touched her bright hair, making a halo of gold round her shadowed...

All through the evening she had had to endure the comments of both Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece on the manners and appearance, the character, and the prospects of Wallace Armstr...

The wind was keen, and every now and then drifting snowflakes told of the coming storm. The Round Pond was covered with a thin sheet of ice, and upon the green roof of Kensingto...

In spite of Wallace Armstrong's entreaties, Laline could not alter her arrangement not to make the acquaintance of Alexander Wallace; for when Mrs. Vandeleur fixed upon the foll...

Miss Cavan could not, however, complain that the companion whose presence she so much objected to endeavoured in any way to outshine her in conversation. Laline scarcely spoke a...

A sudden rage seized Laline against both Wallace and herself. She hated herself for tolerating and even liking him, and she hated him for what she regarded as his unparalleled d...

As soon as the words "Wallace Armstrong, what has become of Laline Garth?" had left her lips, Laline's heart sank within her. On Wallace's answer very much depended. And at firs...

A considerable expanse of water, forming a miniature lake, led out into a long winding canal, which took its course under tall over-arching trees and between steep banks, in sum...

To Laline's great relief, no one spoke to her or interferred with her in any way on her return; and she was able to retire with her ecstatic thoughts to her own room.

Trembling like a leaf in the wind, unnerved and weeping, Laline started from her seat, and as the door closed on the servant held out her arms towards her lover.

Clare Cavan had wholly misunderstood the man with whom she had to deal when, by means of an anonymous letter, signed "A Well-Wisher," which she herself had delivered at his lodg...

In the case of the two Armstrongs the saying was so far true that Wallace Armstrong the elder, after only half-an-hour's intercourse, gauged to a nicety the mental and moral att...

At first she could do nothing but sit with her hands tightly clasped in her lap, half-numbed by the extent of her misfortune. Her folly in failing to distinguish between the two...

It was a view of the matter which had never presented itself to her that she had failed in her duty when she fled from her husband and her father at Boulogne. The formal and bus...

The colour fled from Laline's face as she found herself in the full daylight face to face with the man whom of all the world she least wished to meet.

"Lina," the latter exclaimed, "I am so sorry I could not come before. Apparently I need not introduce you to my cousin. You never told me that you had met him?"

Had he not been a singularly lucky man with an excellent head for figures, he would never have augmented the splendid business which came to him from his father, for he was almo...

If any one could coax from Lina the reason for her conduct it was the little gray witch, whose manner inspired and almost compelled confidence, and who, however much or little s...

Of Laline's selfishness in wanting to marry both the Armstrongs she could not think without hot indignation. Ignoring the mistake which Laline had made on her first meeting with...

"You can't know what you are saying," Lorin said, gently, after a pause. "You forget what has passed between us--you forget that you have again and again sworn that I am the fir...

Exactly a fortnight later Laline stood for the last time within the little room in which she had slept during her stay in Mrs. Vandeleur's house. Within an hour she would have t...