Jessie Trim

Of all the male members of the West family, Turk was the one I liked best. Our intimacy soon ripened into friendship, and he made me the confidant of his woes, and as I was a go...

A week had passed, and there was still no change in my mother's condition. Every time the doctor visited her, his manner became more serious. The shadow of death seemed to hang...

I address you from the grave, and I pray that what I write may never reach your hands. If, unhappily, you are fated to read these words, they will bring their own punishment wit...

So, without a friend in the world, I wandered still further away from the town in which I was born. I tarried here and tarried there, and found no rest for the sole of my foot u...

At this point I am reminded that I have not described uncle Bryan. A few words will suffice. A tall spare man, strongly built, with no superfluity of flesh about him; iron-gray...

As the tone in which I spoke denoted that I did not wish to continue the conversation, my mother said nothing more. Not that she had grown indifferent to the subject upon which...

all the world must know me as I walked along, and I cocked up my head, I can tell you. How we do puff ourselves out, we frogs! That's what I asked you that night, Master Chris,...

It seemed to me as if I had closed my eyes and opened them with scarcely a moment's interval; and yet I was at home in our own little room, and my mother was bending over me ten...

Among the cases tried at the late assizes was one not only of local interest, but exceedingly remarkable, because of the extraordinary circumstances attendant upon the arrest of...

I became a frequent visitor at Mr. Glaive's house. Three or four times every week I spent my evenings there, and I was always welcomed with smiles and good words. Mr. Glaive and...

Early in the morning I watched for an opportunity to endeavour to make peace with Jessie. My mother had been in great anxiety about me during the night, and had come down to my...

Her words attracted uncle Bryan's attention, and he regarded me with more interest than he usually evinced. We three were alone. Jessie was spending the evening with some neighb...

I think if I had been suddenly plunged into Aladdin's cave, I should not have been more amazed. There I should have expected to see the rich treasures of gold and precious stone...

As the curtain falls upon a scene in a drama, and when it rises again so many years are supposed to have elapsed, so between the closing of the last chapter and the opening of t...

The boy took no notice of the neighbours, but wheeled straight through them, regardless of their legs. Neither did he take any notice of us, except by whistling in our faces. Bu...

I looked in the glass, without any feeling of vanity. I always took pains with my appearance when I was about to present myself to Jessie, but I had no high opinion of myself, a...

There was little enough to eat, but my boy's appetite, and the cunning way my mother had of placing our humble fare before me, made the plain food as sweet as the best.

Her voice was like music to my heart. With Jessie on one side of me, and my mother on the other, there was not a cloud on my life, nor room for one. I sat between them, now patt...

We went out of the parlour together, and I put up the shutters, and bolted them. Then my mother and I went downstairs to the kitchen, and my mother set light to the fire, and wa...

In his letter which offered us a home, uncle Bryan had stated, truly enough, that he was a poor man. Although he purchased his stock in very small quantities, he often had as mu...

The harmonious relations between uncle Bryan and Jessie which my birthday seemed to have inaugurated continued for more than a fortnight, a result entirely due to Jessie's untir...

The paper which I held in my hand became blurred in my sight, and for a few moments the only thing that was clear to me was that Jessie was lost to me, and that all possible hap...

As my earliest remembrances are associated with my grandmother's wedding, it takes natural precedence here of all other matter. I was not there, of course, but I seem to see it...

The eventful evening arrived. It had been a difficult matter with me to keep the knowledge of the affair to myself, for I was in a state of great excitement, and my mother notic...

Exactly three weeks had passed since Mr. Glover's departure, and I here take the opportunity of mentioning that, although I have seen the gentleman subsequently on two or three...

My mother and I stopped up talking until very late on this night. The future was not mentioned; all our talk was of the past. My mother recalled the reminiscences of her younger...

The morning of Jessie's birthday rose bright and clear. How well I remember it, and every trivial feature connected with it, which, apparently but little noted at the time, impr...

'Like a true friend as you are. The subject I want to talk about is spelt with four letters--s-e-l-f. Such a subject needs no overture; up with the curtain, then. I start with a...

The coldness between uncle Bryan and Jessie did not diminish with time. As a matter of necessity they were compelled to speak to each other occasionally, but they did so with co...

The consequences were more serious than any one of us could possibly have imagined, with the single exception of uncle Bryan; where we hoped, he reasoned, and reasoned with bitt...

In due time I was introduced to other members of the West family, and grew so much attached to them, and so enamoured of their ways, that I spent nearly all my leisure in their...

Josey West's prediction proved to be right. When I rose the next morning uncle Bryan had not returned. Josey, looking as fresh as though she had had a good night's rest, told me...

I soon made the acquaintance of Mr. Glover. In pursuance of my plans, I presented myself at Mr. Rackstraw's office every day at a certain hour, for the purpose of seeing Jessie...

I walked home in the most sorrowful of moods. Turk accompanied me part of the way, but when he began to speak in Mr. Glover's favour, I said that I would prefer to walk by mysel...

The perusal of this letter affected me powerfully. There was something solemn in the mere handling of a confession written by a woman long since dead--a woman who had been so cr...

I echoed the words, but the news was so sudden and unexpected that for a few moments I did not quite understand their meaning. I had never, until the last fortnight, had a frien...

I have already mentioned the name of the servant whom my grandmother brought with her to our house; it was Jane Painter. She had been with my grandmother for many years, from gi...

Misfortunes never come singly, and they did not come singly to us. It was not for us to give the lie to a proverb. Often in a family, death is in a hurry when it commences, and...

When I recovered from the fever of which the experiences just recorded were the prelude, I found that we had removed from the house in which I was born, and that we were occupyi...

I keep her waiting but a very few minutes, and presently we are in the streets. I know that something of importance is about to be disclosed to me, and that it will please my mo...

The friend to whom Turk referred was, fortunately for us, in the lobby of the theatre, and as the two were engaged in conversation, the man I came to seek lounged towards us. He...

I saw that uncle Bryan was listening, and I saw also by the expression in his face that the matter was new to him; my mother had not complained to him of Jessie.

Thus abruptly uncle Bryan concluded his story. Some parts of it had moved me very deeply with sympathy for him; but the latter part, where he spoke of Jessie in such a strangely...

I had been for some time employed on a large drawing of Jessie, in crayons. It was my first ambitious attempt in colours; and it arose from Jessie's complaint that I could not p...

Notwithstanding her limited means, my mother had always managed to keep up a respectable appearance. Popular report had settled it that my grandmother was a woman of property an...

A day or two afterwards I surprised my mother and uncle Bryan in the midst of a conversation which I supposed had reference to myself. My mother was in a very earnest mood, but...

Jessie's moods were sufficiently variable and perplexing to cause me serious uneasiness, but I had no suspicion of what was in her mind when she spoke of uncle Bryan and his rel...

There was a friend of the family of whose name I have no remembrance, and whom, from a certain personal peculiarity, I must denominate Snaggletooth. He was a large man--very tal...

'Well, Chris, the teeth. Mr. Glover's two middle teeth in his top jaw have just the kind of slit between them that caused the detective to discover Anthony Bullpit, for all his...

So far as I could judge from outward appearances, the coldness between uncle Bryan and Jessie increased with time, rather than lessened. Their natures seemed to be in direct ant...

Within a few weeks after the events described in the last chapter Jessie and I were married. There were six bridesmaids, Josey and Florry West, and their four little sisters. On...

'Well, Master Chris,' said Josey West, as my mother and I entered the kitchen on the following night, here are the old times come over again. Now, children, bustle about! Florry...