Instead of the Thorn: A Novel

Her lips, which had returned to their rather grim line, twitched a little as she spoke, and Maud Porter glanced about the living-room with its old-fashioned furniture and rag ru...

June heat dropped down on Chicago promptly that year and caused the Barrys to plan to leave town earlier than it suited the banker to go. Indeed, no weather condition ever made...

Blanche Aurora's prey could not so easily escape her. She had been left in charge of Linda and she followed her now to the porch: that exciting porch surmounting a castle wall o...

King's improvement was slow, but steady, and the stretch of good weather upon which he happened on arriving at the Cape enabled him to live out-of-doors and was a great factor i...

As the panting little figure approached and hesitated in her doorway, Linda turned from some white stuff she had been piling on the bed and met the round, expectant eyes, "Come...

Maine. Mrs. Porter loved the very word. Always when the train left the North Station in Boston she sank into her chair with a sense of shaking off the cares of life; and to-day...

Bertram King, in all the years she had known him, had not dwelt in Linda's mind so often as in these days. She felt aggrieved to have the thought of him thrust upon her as it ha...

During the monotonous days following the funeral, Miss Barry and her niece dwelt alone in the big, echoing house. Harriet had gone home to her husband and child. The papers stil...

Fred Whitcomb felt his eyes sting, but he scorned to wipe them as he strode manfully up Michigan Avenue. Instead, he scowled and set his teeth and threw his shoulders back, as o...

Linda Barry was looking in the glass. She liked her own reflection, and no wonder. She was coolly critical of her own appearance, however, and granted it her approval only when...

"Why, if that isn't Mr. Whitcomb!" she said. She groaned. "I don't think I've got a supper for a man; I do hate to cater for the great, walloping things."

Often during the remainder of the journey Linda questioned her aunt about her own and her father's childhood. Hitherto she had avoided as far as possible all mention or knowledg...

"Somebody evidently has told you a fairy story about me,"--the speaker continued to eat industriously. "Who tried to induce you to believe that I was anything but an American ra...

Miss Barry took the rest of the flowers and placed their stems in the washbowl, where the lovely blossoms lolled over awkwardly in an increasing haze of dust, after the manner o...

When Linda wrote to Chicago for the dresses to be sent on, she asked the caretaker of the house to send a photograph of her mother which she would find in her dresser drawer.

Mrs. Porter was Miss Barry's prop and stay in matters regarding her niece, and she turned to her when succeeding days revealed the fact that Linda had set out deliberately to sp...

Miss Barry's brow was troubled as, that afternoon, in much harassment of mind, she wended her way to the home of her elder niece. Miss Belinda had always approved of Harriet. Sh...

Linda enjoyed the long flight under the June stars between the waves of the freshwater sea and the star-filled lagoons of Lincoln Park, and returned late to the dark house on th...

"In the happy days, I tore off a leaf from your Bible calendar, and one morning, when everything was black and despairing, I found it in my bag. It read, 'Instead of the thorn s...

Miss Benslow was wont to refer to her weather-beaten house, woefully in need of paint, as "the homestead." In her grandfather's time the place had been a small farm, but Cy Bens...

Linda, looking at Mrs. Porter, saw in the light of their many talks that her friend was striving for the composure with which it was her wont to meet adverse circumstances.

Luella Benslow had enjoyed her round of afternoon calls. She had paraded the importance of the guests she was "accommodating" and had swelled with satisfaction in the interest s...

Before Miss Barry's train had reached Chicago, Linda had received a telegram conveying sympathy from Mrs. Porter. A pile of notes and letters lay now unopened on her desk. Her s...

That spot in Miss Belinda's heart which had softened toward her niece in the latter's misery of bereavement bid fair to harden over again every time she thought of Linda's attit...

"I declare that was too bad of Jerry," said Miss Barry. "He's usually so"--her voice died away because she became aware of Linda, standing before her, a sort of glorified presen...

When Linda waked next morning, she had been dreamless for nine hours; sunk so deep in slumber after weeks of restless, fitful naps that the return to earth was a slow, scarcely...

On a June evening, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe were entertaining their New York friends the Lindsays at dinner at the South Shore Club. The dining-room, with its spacious semicircle...