Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story for Girls

In a small waiting-room at Blank Hospital a girl was walking up and down, with quick, impatient steps. Every few minutes she stopped to listen; then, hearing no sound, she resum...

It was the 17th of June, and Miss Wealthy Bond was expecting her young visitors. Twice she had gone over the house, with Martha trotting at her heels, to see that everything was...

"You will find your own way about, my dears," she said. "I will only give you some general directions. The orchard is to the right, beyond the garden. There is a pleasant seat t...

"My dears," said Miss Wealthy, as they sat down to dinner,--the bell rang on the stroke of one, and the girls were both ready and waiting in the parlor, which pleased the dear o...

Hildegarde went softly downstairs, and stood in the doorway for a few minutes, looking about her. The house was very still; nothing seemed to be stirring, or even awake, except...

Punctually at ten o'clock the next morning Dr. Abernethy stood before the door, with a neat phaeton behind him; and the girls were summoned from the piazza, where Rose was takin...

The next evening was chilly, and instead of sitting on the piazza, the girls were glad to draw their chairs around Miss Wealthy's work-table and bring out their work-baskets. Hi...

crown, but I told her how Scripture said a woman's glory was her hair, and that quieted her at once. Poor soul! she was real good and pious, and she'd listen to Scripture readin...

"Well," said Hildegarde, "you spoke of the time when Mamma was a 'harum-scarum girl;' and the idea of her ever having been anything of the sort was so utterly amazing that--that...

Miss Wealthy was sitting on the back piazza, crocheting a tidy. The stitch was a new one, and quite complicated, and her whole mind was bent upon it. "One, two, purl, chain, sli...

Rose was wonderfully better. Every day in the clear, bracing air of Bywood seemed to bring fresh vigor to her frame, fresh color to her cheeks. She began to take regular walks,...

Rose sighed, as she always did at the sound of the "impossible language," as she called the French, over which she struggled for an hour every day; but got up obediently, and ma...

Benny took possession of his kingdom, and ruled it with a firm, though for the most part an indulgent hand. Miss Wealthy succumbed from the first moment, when he advanced boldly...

It was a lovely August morning. Hildegarde and Rose had the peas to shell for dinner, and had established themselves under the great elm-tree, each with a yellow bowl and a blue...

At this point Bubble's narrative was interrupted by the appearance of Martha, making demand for her peas. Bubble was duly presented to her; and she beamed on him through her spe...

In the latter days of August came a hot wave. It started, we will say, from the Gulf, which was heated sevenfold on purpose, and which simmered and hissed like a gigantic caldro...

So it came to pass that at the breakfast-table next morning no one was so bright and gay as Miss Wealthy. She was full of the new plan, and made one suggestion after another.

Supper was over. The girls had laughingly resisted their hostess's appeal, "Just one more fritter, with another on each side to keep it warm,--though I don't know as they _are_...

It was the tenth day of September, and as pleasant a day as one could wish to see. The sun shone brightly everywhere; but Hildegarde thought that the laughing god sent his brigh...