Leah Mordecai: A Novel

By and by the bell sounded for the half hour's release from study. Then Leah stepped across the room, and gently taking Lizzie by the arm, said, "Come, let's walk."

TIME stole along. Many months had slipped into the past since the day of the lamented Colonel Marshall's death-months of which this narrative has little to record, save that the...

THE war still raged. The whole world, one might dare to say, was more or less agitated by this conflict. Vigilance, tightening its grasp here, redoubling its blows there, watchi...

FROM the day that Leah first found her husband in the prison, and observed the coarse, uninviting fare that was served to the prisoners, she had daily prepared his food herself,...

THE ruddy beams of an October sun shone through the one window of the little rudely furnished room that Leah occupied in the inn. Weary from her long, toilsome journey, she stil...

THE examination-days at Madam Truxton's were over. The long-dreaded reviews had been passed with credit to both pupils and instructors. The certificates of scholarship, and the...

IT was only two months after the kind matron of the Bellevue Home had the invalid Mrs. Moses removed to its hospitable walls, before she saw, with regret, that the life she soug...

MELROSE, Lizzie Heartwell's home, was a manufacturing village in the northern part of a Southern State. A more picturesque or inviting spot is seldom found. It crowned the summi...

"My dear," said Mrs. Abrams, as Mark on this evening was preparing to leave his house for that of his affianced, to make the last necessary arrangements for the coming ceremony,...

THE first spring of peace gave place to summer, a summer memorable for its intense heat. One afternoon, toward the latter part of July, clouds dark and angry overcast the sky, a...

LEAH MORDECAI sat alone in her bed chamber. A bright fire glowed within the grate, and the gas-light overhead added its mellow brightness to the apartment. Arrayed in a comforta...

THE morning sun threw its ruddy beams, warm almost to tropical heat, through the half-closed casement of Leah Mordecai's apartment, and the intrusive light opened the dark, drea...

THE month sped on. The end of Madam Truxton's year was rapidly advancing. School-friendships that had grown and matured within the seminary walls, now deepened and intensified a...

"Not that, Lizzie; but I am ashamed to tell you, and afraid too. But," she continued, "you know what I suffered about Mark Abrams, and how his love was taken from me and secured...

ANXIOUS and nervous from the expected sorrow of the coming day, Mr. Mordecai rose early from his couch of restless slumber. Restlessly he walked the library floor backward and f...

Groups of restless, anxious pupils stood about the apartment, or were gathered at the windows, watching the rain that had been falling in copious showers since morning. All were...

NIGHT gathered around the Queen City with dark and sombre fold, after the chilly October day previous to the one appointed for Leah Mordecai's departure for Europe-a night whose...

IN their quiet little sea-girt home, where the skies were bright and blue, and the breezes balmy and soft, Emile Le Grande and his young wife had dwelt in peace and happiness fo...

THE hours stole on, and the one for Lizzie's departure was at hand. As the sun sank slowly down to rest, on that memorable sunny June day, clouds of crimson, purple, and gold, b...

IN the quiet little parlor of Widow Heartwell, in the early May morning, the tender breeze stole in and out of the window, fluttering the muslin curtain and filling the apartmen...

"I welcome you gladly, Miss Heartwell," said Mrs. Levy, rising and taking Lizzie by the hand. "I have long desired your acquaintance, knowing my daughter's friendship for you. P...

THE strange, almost incredible, and yet evidently truthful confession of old Peter, fell upon the heart of Mr. Mordecai with a weight that broke its stubbornness, and at once so...

Taking the letter, Mr. Mordecai crushed it in his hand, then placed it in his breast pocket, as he again started forward toward his banking-house. If he passed man, woman, child...

TWO years rolled away-two short, bright years of individual and national prosperity, and then came a change. To use the words of the immortal Dickens, "It was the best of times,...

SIX months rolled by-six memorable months, that sadly blasted a nation's hopes, and overturned the plans and purposes of countless individuals. The war-cloud had darkened and de...

TWO pale lilies and two royal roses upon a stem, would scarcely form a more beautiful or striking group than did the four maidens standing together under the stone archway of th...

A WEEK passed. No word concerning the projected journey had been spoken by her father, and the young girl was beginning to hope that it might have been only the burden of an idl...

MONDAY morning came again. The great bell in the cupola of Madam Truxton's seminary had sounded, and all the pupils, large and small, were gathered to join in the opening exerci...

THE spring had come again, and a little more than its first month had elapsed when, early one morning, as the sun was stealing up softly from the east, and before it had brought...

"SATURDAY night--by Jove! Sunday morning, I suppose I should write it, to be strictly truthful. And I guess that orthodox people would roll their pious eyes, and declare that I...

EVENT crowded upon event as the first two long years of the war glided by-years that seemed to calendar twenty-four, instead of twelve months each. The strife hadn't yet reached...

"AUNT BARBARA," said Leah, the day before the proposed departure of the vessel that was to bear her away, "will you tell Mingo to leave the key of the lodge hanging just inside...

THE bombardment of the Queen City continued. With unprecedented stubbornness did she resist the enemy's fierce demands, and stand firm amid the death-dealing blows of shot and s...

THE terrible tragedy that had filled so many hearts with consternation, the untimely and mysterious death of Mark Abrams, had long since been numbered with the events of the pas...

IT were impossible to chronicle the half that transpired in the eventful days of those eventful years. Days seemed months, and months seemed years, in their sad, slow progress....

"MY son," said Mrs. Abrams, in low, gentle tone to Mark one day, as she looked into the small library where he sat busily at work upon something half-concealed in his hand, "com...

THE war-cloud rolled away. The dark, wild, sanguinary cloud, that had swept with such devastating fury over a land where war was deemed impossible, was passed. The roar of canno...

As Lizzie Heartwell turned the corner that separated her from her companion, she drew her shawl more closely around her benumbed form and quickened the steps that were hurrying...

LEAH MORDECAI sat alone in the southern balcony of her father's house one night in this same memorable August, the events of which were so fully recorded in Emile's diary-sat al...

"I HAVE been in such a maze of suspense and bewilderment for a month, dear Journal, that I have neglected you; to-night I'll recall, if I can, some of my lost days. No, I can't....

TIME rolled on. Months had melted into months until they were calendared by years, since we bade adieu to Madam Truxton's finishing class on that departed June day 185-, and wat...

THE war still raged. Everywhere in all the beleaguered land, the tide of brothers' blood flowed apace. Bitterness grew with every hour, and not one heaven-toned voice was heard...

THE rosy month of May succeeded the chilly April in that memorable year when the war-cloud of civil contest overshadowed the land so darkly. It came with unwonted verdure, fresh...