Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales

Her old friend rallied after a moment to the interest of this news, marking his full appreciation of it by a burst of laughter. “To think of Nancy Beck! The people here do beat...

I’m rather disappointed, I confess, in the society I find here; it isn’t so richly native, of so indigenous a note, as I could have desired. Indeed, to tell the truth, it’s not...

Waterville was struck with his coolness. He admired it; for, after all, he noted, it must have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He felt rather an ass, and wished he h...

He suffered three days to elapse before he called at the Hôtel Meurice, which she had designated, and we may occupy this interval in adding a few words to the story we have take...

“Oh, she counts upon you to introduce her to the American Minister at the Court of Saint James’s,” Littlemore opined without mercy. “It’s lucky for you our representative here’s...

She might tell him what to do, but he felt free all the same; and he was determined this should continue. To prove it to himself he jumped into a hansom and drove back to Brook...

“He would have to be some one fine, the man I should marry now. I have a good deal to make up, you know. That’s what I want to learn about Sir Arthur. All this time you haven’t...

He distinguished me, as the French say; he honoured me with his esteem and, as the days elapsed, with no small share of his confidence. Sometimes he bored me a little, for the t...

They were interrupted by the arrival of the servant with a second course, and Littlemore gave a laugh as he helped himself. “It would be a lark to see her married to that superi...

Since I last wrote to you I’ve left that nice hotel and come to live in a French family—which, however, is nice too. This place is a kind of boarding-house that’s at the same ti...

She took it blandly. “Can one ever be _too_ long? You see it’s _our_ world, that of us few real fugitives from the rule of the mob. We shall never go back to that.”

Meeting Rupert Waterville the next day, as he often did, at the Saint George’s Club, which offers a much-appreciated hospitality to secretaries of legation and to the natives of...

Lady Barb’s relations with Mrs. Vanderdecken consisted mainly in wondering, while she talked, what she wanted of her, and in looking, with her sculptured eyes, at her visitor’s...

There had been a good many things in her life in New York that cost her an effort, but sending her love to her mother-in-law was not one of these. She liked Mrs. Lemon better th...

“I think it’s tremendous”—this at least she kept up; and on another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry. Hereupon it was that, as I have said, he felt a little the bur...

“I’m not so sure. He’ll find people here richer than himself, and other big horses in plenty, and that will cheer him up. Perhaps too he’s looking for that girl.”

Lord Canterville passed a large fair hand, as for inspiration, over his beard. “My dear fellow, we’re excellent friends. No one could appreciate you more than Lady Canterville....

Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of some forty odd years; and the two ladies, with the assistance of a couple of thick-waisted red-armed peasant-women, kept the house...

If I allude to the young people, that’s our other danger; the young people are eating us up—there’s nothing in America but the young people. The country’s made for the rising ge...

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this last proposition; for, the company rising in compliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they should walk...

“Allons, en marche!” trumpeted M. Pigeonneau, all gallant urbanity and undiscouraged by her impertinence. “Let us make together the tour of the garden.” And he attached himself...

“Well,” he returned, “I guess you know, and if I could _let_ you fix me we’d probably have some big times. But I seem to strike opportunities—well, in excess of my powers. I don...

Lord Lambeth came the next day with his trap, when the two ladies, attended by Willie Woodley, placed themselves under his guidance and were conveyed eastward, through some of t...

The elder man stared as if he couldn’t fancy it. “In Paris I’m very apt to dine at a place where there’s an English waiter. Don’t you know, what’s-his-name’s, close to the thing...

The same influences appeared, however, with Mr. Beaumont to make rather for anxiety. “What was fun to Littledale,” he said at last a little sententiously, “may be death to us.”

Jackson Lemon had said to Dr. Feeder in the Park that he would call on Mr. and Mrs. Freer; but three weeks were to elapse before he knocked at their door in Jermyn Street. In th...

For there is no communicating to the diluvian presence, on such a scale, any suspicion that convenience shall anywhere fail it: all its consciousness, on that general head, is t...

If I felt far way from you in the middle of that deplorable Atlantic, chère Madame, how do I feel now, in the heart of this extraordinary city? We’ve arrived—we’ve arrived, dear...

The two ladies had arranged that on this afternoon Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde Park, where Bessie expected it would prove a rich passage to have sat on a little g...

Mamma, however, is only going to bring Mary and Gus and Fred and Adelaide abroad with her: the others will remain at Kingscote till February (about the 3rd) when they’ll go to E...

He couldn’t imagine that while he talked to Mrs. Freer—and it amazed him afterwards that he should have chattered so; he could account for it but by the state of his nerves—she...

Add to this that there are two young Englanders in the house who hate all the Americans in a lump, making between them none of the distinctions and favourable comparisons which...

“Well, scenery isn’t everything,” she made soft answer to Mr. Longstraw; “and if Lady Agatha should wish to see anything of that kind all she has got to do is to take the boat u...

I ought to have written you long before this, for I’ve had your last excellent letter these four months in my hands. The first half of that time I was still in Europe, the last...

“I’ve made such mistakes—I’ve lost all confidence,” said poor Waterville, to whom European civilisation had not ceased to be a novelty and who during the last six months had fou...

I have gathered into this volume several short fictions of the type I have already found it convenient to refer to as “international”—though I freely recognise, before the array...

“Of course she’s a charming girl. I don’t know a girl more charming—in a very quiet way. But there are other charming girls—charming in all sorts of ways—nearer home.”

Sidney Feeder wondered. “Hasn’t _she_ got a title too? What would she expect him to be? President of the United States? He’s a man of real ability—he might have stood at the hea...

Immense female symposia at which every delicacy is provided are one of the most striking features of American life, and would seem to prove that our sex is scarcely so indispens...