Invincible Minnie

Mr. Petersen rode along in the choking dust, considering the problem with perplexity but with good-humour. After all, it was absurd.... He wanted to be kind, but he didn’t want...

Two years previously Mr. Petersen had arrived in Brownsville Landing and had rented an office in the most up-to-date building there was, putting up a modest sign, “Christian Pet...

It was Frances who was usually considered the snob of the family, for Frances was imperious and inclined to be haughty, and had a sense of her personal dignity. But, as a matter...

Frances had waked up early that first morning. She looked round the big, low-ceilinged room, at the pictures on the walls, sheep in a snowstorm, ships at sea, religious maidens,...

Indulgence was all that Frankie could obtain. In vain she talked of the good she could do them, of how she would be able to help them as she got on better, of the value of the e...

A year and a half went by, and nothing changed. Minnie was the same serious little drudge, Frankie went on with her work in Mr. Petersen’s office; he too was quite the same. The...

Behold Minnie, a week or so later, harnessing Bess, this time for a mission authorised and altogether blameless. She was going to the station to meet Frankie, who was coming hom...

That winter was for Minnie the bitterest and hardest one she was ever to know. She came to the very brink of discouragement; she had not as yet fully developed the supreme self-...

“How _could_ you!” she cried. “How _could_ you! How did you and Minnie dare to arrange my life for me that way?... You didn’t know.... You couldn’t know--what plans I had.... Ho...

Frances did not mention this shortcoming of Miss Eppendorfer’s at home, and it was never openly referred to between the authoress and herself. But Miss Eppendorfer ceased to be...

A very long time indeed! Dimly, in her muddled head, she realised how much she wanted and needed Frankie, even foresaw the day when Mr. Kurt Hassler would go the way of other me...

“What I particularly want to ask,” he said, “is, if you’d come down to Brighton Beach to-morrow? I’ll run you down in Horace’s motor. We’ll have lunch and a swim and get back ea...

Frances hurried into her hat and jacket and went down. She got into the motor-car beside him, indescribably relieved to get away from the flat for a while. She looked at him wit...

“We might not,” he said. “There’s such a mob here. Better take no chances. As for the train--no, thanks! Now, do be a nice kid, and not scold me. Don’t you want me to have _any_...

Frances was a prey to remorse that night. She took into consideration Lionel’s upbringing, Horace’s indulgence to him, his own generous and careless nature, and she felt that sh...

He didn’t approve of walking in the rain; he thought it imprudent and eccentric, so that he was somewhat stiff; but she took no notice of that. She thrust her hand through his a...

Mr. Petersen had remained faithful to the memory of Minnie for five years. It cannot be said that he had grieved, or suffered; his attachment had not been a very passionate one;...

As an office worker Minnie was not so successful as Mr. Petersen had anticipated. Not by any means. She tried; she was very earnest and, in a way, painstaking, but it was extrem...

After a decorous interval, Mr. Petersen began discreetly to woo. He had considered the matter very thoroughly, and he was sure that his happiness lay in marrying Minnie. He did...

He was standing on the back porch, looking into the kitchen formerly Mrs. Hansen’s immaculate kingdom. How changed, how sadly altered now! As if a huge maddened bumblebee had be...

And that marked the beginning. After that she missed something almost every day, and it nearly made her insane. She never talked of anything else; to Mr. Petersen, to Mrs. Peter...

It may be said with perfect truth that Mr. Petersen was haunted by the leg of lamb; it gave him sleepless nights. He couldn’t imagine why it was there. He would stop in the midd...

Minnie was angelic. Her worry, her preoccupied air had gone; she was gentle, gay, affectionate. She didn’t get well very fast and had to stay in bed for some weeks, but that was...

Mr. Petersen was thankful to escape from the house the next morning. After what a night! No sleep for anyone; even the baby had been awake and crying half a dozen times.

One might imagine a sort of allegorical picture of Minnie’s progress. There would be Minnie, in her triumphal chariot, dressed in modern garments for the reason that her rather...

This is the story Lionel would have told, if he could. But, poor devil, he was as incapable of explaining himself as if he had been a creature from another planet. Even the few...

He woke up the next morning dizzy and sick, and quite obsessed by the question of food. Marriage and love were relatively unimportant. Not that he was hungry, at all, only dread...

Minnie had asked Lionel to stop at home the next day until he heard from her, and of course, he did so, simply darting out, once for breakfast, once for lunch.

Horace was in his private office, not at all busy, when his brother came in. He might, if he had been a child of nature, have jumped up and cried out that the light of his life...

Julie consented to go out with Horace one Sunday to see the young couple, although she was something more than reluctant. She was conscious of being an irreproachable woman and...

They went on, God knows how, for two years. Always in debt, always harassed, gradually going down and down, their style of living always deteriorating, themselves becoming more...

It was the tragedy of Lionel’s life that he so genuinely admired what was honourable, and so persistently did what was dishonourable. From good and admirable motives always. He...

Mr. Petersen and Frances lingered at the table long after the meal was finished. Partly from fatigue, partly from embarrassment, neither of them cared to suggest getting up. For...

The time went by well enough for Frankie. She was busy, and after a fashion, happy, with the children. She had long ago trained herself not to search her own heart, not to indul...

She came in upon them like a whirlwind, as they sat at the dinner table, and at the sight of their familiar faces, she gave a sort of sob of relief, and flung herself into a cha...