Hope Mills; Or, Between Friend and Sweetheart

THE regal woman who stepped from the car to the station-platform at Yerbury, one balmy day in early June, to be greeted by Fred and Sylvie Lawrence with the warmest of welcomes,...

Jack Darcy flushed like a girl, through the other fine coloring of labor. He had hardly dared to believe in and hold to Maverick's promise. Manlike, neither had spoken of it sin...

SUMMER came on apace. The Cooking Club took a vacation, or rather turned into a gardening club, and studied the sensible part of botany and floriculture. People began to look at...

He had been greatly shocked at his father's death. True, the tender, intense affection that had so sweetened childhood seemed to have died out; when they might have attained to...

Jack Darcy leaned back in his office-chair. He had just made up the third half-yearly account. It was bad enough. They had known this all along, and had not concealed it from th...

THE men were, for the most part, in sullen earnest. From their narrower outlook they could not see that capital was on the eve of a great revulsion; that credit had been stretch...

THE winter was a rather open one, with but little snow. Matters were somewhat better in Yerbury, but bad enough, Sylvie Barry thought. The churches began their usual work,--pari...

THERE were a few faint hints of autumn in Yerbury. The air was warm, and freighted with the peculiar sweetness of over-ripe grapes and apples, of dried balsam and faded golden-r...

IT was easy enough now to get hands who would consent to the three-quarter wages. With one winter of semi-starvation the poor of Yerbury were glad to take any thing that promise...

AFTER the first of January it came off bitterly cold. Coal went up half a dollar on a ton; and flour rose, more by the greed of speculators than any scarcity, or any demand for...

"And now, if you don't mind, you may take a walk with me," said Maverick. "Office-hours are over, and I have some rather serious cases on hand. Jerry's gone lame, stuck a nail i...

FOR the first time in his life, and for some unfathomable cause, Jack Darcy found business cares irksome. Balance-time was at hand. He was a little tired of the dreary round. Th...

THE excitement ran very high not only in Yerbury, but all over the country. Strikes seemed the order of the day again, and for what reason, was not clearly made manifest, unless...

"FATHER!" exclaimed Jack a few days after this parting from his bosom friend, "I think I will go in the mill for a year or two, if there is any thing for me to do. Meanwhile my...

IF Jack Darcy had taken his tour for pure pleasure and enjoyment, the time was ill chosen in every respect. Winter was bad enough; but an unprosperous one, full of financial clo...

HOPE MILLS passed through a very prosperous six months. With some new processes, invented by the combined energy and ingenuity of the men, they made a new line of goods which wa...

IT was a dull, gray day, the first of December. Autumn had set in early this year. There had been a week of cold rain that had quite destroyed the magnificent foliage, one of Ye...

THE morning's mail brought to Darcy the letter he had hardly dared expect. It was brief but cordial. Would he come to New York, and the matter could be arranged to his satisfact...

THE strikers at the hat-factory did not carry the day. The employers were very indignant, and tabooed the union men altogether. At Garafield's the men were called in council, th...

"THERE is Fred again with his arm around Jack Darcy's neck. I declare, they are worse than two romantic schoolgirls. I am so thankful Fred goes away to-morrow for a year! and I...

THE garden-party was a success, and Miss Lawrence the acknowledged belle of the evening. No one else could have carried off the peculiar style of dress. She knew that she was ra...

WHEN Farrell returned to his post in the morning, Jackson reported Mr. Lawrence asleep in the office. No one thought of him again until about ten o'clock, when some protested no...

"She does not feel very well this morning, and I told her there was no need of rising with the lark," answered cousin Jane; but, though her voice was cheerful, there was a new g...

JACK DARCY'S business-tour, while it had not been productive of any great financial results, had restored his healthy mental equilibrium. He found other firms were having it jus...

THERE was an influx of new blood in Yerbury, and it brought in fresh ideas. A new railroad touched it at one edge, and real-estate dealers left off fighting about Larch Avenue....

WHEN Fred Lawrence came next day into Sylvie Barry's presence, there was a certain proud humility shining in his handsome face, that was now quite worn and thin; a dignity born...

NOW that Fred Lawrence had come home, there was no need of going so often to Hope Terrace, Sylvie thought. Time never hung heavy on her hands; for she was not indolent, and ther...

SYLVIE BARRY meanwhile walked along rather rapidly for a warm morning. She felt irritated. Her sweet lips were set in defiant curves, the red heats of annoyance burned and faded...