Let Us Kiss and Part; or, A Shattered Tie

For her fault the daughter had been cast off by her parents, and the young man dismissed from the school where he taught. Unable to secure another position, misfortune had stead...

“Sister Jessie, I am so hungry. Please give me some bread!” sobbed the pleading voice of a little child, clinging to the skirts of the young house mother, a dark-eyed girl of si...

Madame Barto’s ideas of a parlormaid seemed rather confused, for her gloomy little brick house had no occupants save herself and Jessie, and before business hours in the morning...

Could it be he had fallen in love with her? This rich, handsome young man--in love with the face that she could not help knowing was very fair. Madame must be mistaken thinking...

“I have pitched the bold fellow down the steps, and he has gone off out of the way. Why, how pale and ill you look! Were you so much frightened of a kiss?”

If Jessie had turned her fair head to look back as she drove off so triumphantly with her handsome escort, she would have seen Carey Doyle scrambling up from the gutter where he...

When the beautiful brunette in her drive through the park met Jessie Lyndon riding by the side of Frank Laurier, all the blood in her veins seemed momentarily to turn to ice in...

With an evil smile on his face, Carey Doyle whipped up the horse and drove swiftly back to his aunt’s house, his eyes gloating on the pale, unconscious beauty of Jessie’s face a...

The Fifth Avenue mansion where Mrs. Dalrymple lived was little less than a palace as she was little less than a princess, if royal beauty, royal wealth, and almost royal state c...

Instantly Jessie sprang to her feet. She stood still a moment, looking at him with wounded love, doubt, fear, incredulity, all struggling together in her great, soft, dark eyes...

Madame Barto did not expect any customers the next morning; it was so still, so dark and lowering after the night’s storm, but at ten o’clock the bell clanged loudly and she adm...

Thursday morning dawned fair and sunny with all traces of Tuesday night’s storm swept away--the streets clean, the skies blue, the air crisply cold--the day set for Jessie Lyndo...

Yet there he stood in their midst, his handsome head bowed reverently, his face pale, his eyes heavy with grief--he who should be so happy in this his bridal hour!

When Laurier and Noel had both been taken away, the man whose bicycle had been the cause of their calamity stood alone among the curious onlookers gazing somewhat ruefully at th...

“It is nothing, after all--only to give me one look at the dead girl’s face! What could they do to you even if they discovered the truth?” Dalrymple repeated impatiently, and he...

“I will take her far away from New York, my precious daughter, and her mother shall never know that she is not lying in the old vault among her dead-and-gone kindred, the proud...

“Such a strange dream, papa!--sweet and strange, for I seemed to be dead, but I felt no sorrow for it, because life had been cruel to me, and I was glad to be at rest. Then she...

Leon Lyndon, as he chose to call himself, left New York within the week with his strangely recovered daughter, and in new pursuits and pleasures both sought oblivion of the pain...

She argued to herself that if he had not gone to the funeral he would not have been forced to the haste that had resulted so disastrously to himself and caused her so cruel a mo...

The fond arms twined about his neck, the dark head nestled against his breast, the dewy red lips were upturned to meet his own, but as he pressed them he remembered other lips,...

“Yet you pretend indifference to him, refused to marry him on what might have been his deathbed, and, besides, I had heard it whispered that you were so angry on your wedding da...

Her face was as white as the snowflakes, her very lips pale, and her eyes flashed with a dangerous anger that startled her desperate lover. In their dark gleam he read, indeed,...

Cora had lent color to this report by frankly owning that Noel had perfidiously sought to win her from Laurier, and in the madness of disappointment threatened to take his own l...

The man was Leon Lyndon, and he was returning with his daughter Jessie after nearly two years’ absence from New York. Lyndon, tall, fair, middle-aged, with a most serious expres...

The sweet voice died away in lingering echoes over the waters, the mandolin ceased its plaintive chords, and Jessie sat down with a low sigh by her father’s side, and leaned her...

Of the horrors that attended the burning of the _Atlanta_ in mid-ocean that September night none could clearly tell, not even the survivors, so sudden had been the alarm, so ter...

“If you escape this horror, Jessie, go to New York to Mrs. Dalrymple. Tell her you are her daughter, sent to her at last by her erring husband. Tell her that in his last hour Le...

To his surprise and dismay not a sign was to be seen of the fair head of the man in whom he took an almost painful interest for the sake of his daughter.

“Afloat somewhere on the wide, wide sea, as we are, little Jessie, and held in the hollow of the same Divine Hand that is able to save us even from this terrible plight. Be brav...

A boat was quickly lowered, and they were drawn into it with all speed, and, oh, what pity and kindness was showered on them after their long exposure and peril!

And what made the parting worse was that Jessie gave them no hope of meeting her again, in spite of their broad hints at renewing her acquaintance in New York.

Her heart beat suffocatingly and almost choked her voice as she tried to speak. “I have startled you, venturing so abruptly on this subject,” he said. “I would have waited longe...

Madame Barto’s doorbell clanged impatiently twice, and then a deeply veiled young lady was admitted, and shown to the small parlor where madame received her callers. She glanced...

Mrs. Dalrymple had never felt like a well woman since the day she kissed her daughter’s dead face and turned away from the old family vault, feeling that her last hope in life w...

So it happened that on the day when the _Scythia_ came into port--the same day that Cora Ellyson went to Madame Barto’s at Carey Doyle’s command--Mrs. Dalrymple lay so ill that...

“Let us go to your aunt now, Cora,” repeated Frank impatiently, and though her anger blazed at his coldness, she dared not give rein to it lest she lose him forever.

Jessie Lyndon had been strong enough to send her lover from her because he was bound to another, but she was not brave enough to meet him daily in the intimate association of he...

And Carey Doyle, who remembered well the rivalry between Cora and Jessie, took a malicious pleasure in doing so, gloating over each word as he saw how ghastly pale and frightene...

“Make me look as young and as well as possible, for I expect a visit from an old friend who has not seen me for years--he will be shocked at the change in me, I know.”

When Dalrymple tore himself away at last to prosecute the search for his daughter, it occurred to him to seek her at the home of Mrs. Godfrey, the aunt of his little nephews, Wi...

“You little meddlesome wretches, how dare you sneak around this way, poking your noses into things that are none of your business! Go away, and if I ever find either one of you...

“What do you mean by disobeying my orders? Didn’t I tell you I would see no one to-night? How dare you take it upon yourself to act contrary to my wishes?”

The words came from the lips of Oscar Hilton with a cry of unutterable fear, as he bent over the rigid and senseless form of his young daughter, on the morning following his int...

Chester St. John, waiting rather impatiently for the appearance of Iris in the parlor, came forward with warm words of greeting to meet the little white-robed figure, when the g...

“Jenny, how much longer must you work to-night? It is so tiresome, lying here alone, with no one to speak to me; won’t you put aside your sewing, dear, and read for me?”

“I called to see your dressmaker this evening, Clara, and she promises to have your work completed to-morrow, without fail, and--but by the way, my dear, I am not quite certain...

“Miss Iris! Oh, please excuse me, I promised to call you always Maggie, but I am so frightened--I don’t know what I say. Maggie, are you awake? My mother is very ill, I fear; I...

Several of the friends whom Iris Hilton had visited in the days of her prosperity resided on Lexington Avenue, and she knew that the number mentioned in the dispatch was in the...

In all her life Iris had never experienced such a feeling of horror as that which filled her heart on finding that she had been trapped to the house on Lexington Avenue by the m...

On the afternoon of the day following Chester St. John’s visit to Mr. Hilton, the former was seated alone in the library of his father’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, pondering sadly...

Cold and unkind though she had been to her daughter while the latter had been in attendance on her, it cost her a struggle to write the words that would make her child appear in...

The person who entered the presence of Iris and Charles Broughton at the latter’s invitation, was Mr. Gerald Dare, the young man who had recognized Iris while walking with Broug...

These simple words and display of affection destroyed the last remnant of strength Iris had striven so hard to retain, and, throwing herself on Jenny’s breast, she sobbed as if...

All day long, while the eyes of her humble friend Jenny and the rest of her shopmates were on her, Iris preserved a calm and almost happy exterior; but when night came, and she...

The handsome residence of Oscar Hilton was ablaze with lights from basement to attic, and from the long parlors issued the sound of merry dance music. It was Isabel’s birthday,...

“Oh, madam, I cannot work any longer; something terrible has happened to Maggie; I have felt so uneasy all day about her, and now, see, it is almost night, and she has not yet r...

“Well, have you concluded to accept my offer?” he asked sternly, and the sound of his voice had the effect of rousing the girl as nothing else could have done.

In less than half an hour after Mrs. Hilton’s cry had alarmed the ladies and gentlemen assembled to do honor to Isabel Hilton in this celebration of her birthday, the house was...

“Miss Tresilian accused of theft! There is--there must be some terrible mistake!” ejaculated Chester St. John, while Grace clung to his arm, pale and shivering, and Isabel, afte...

As the motor car containing Iris and the officers rolled away from Oscar Hilton’s home, Peter, the servant who had admitted Iris on the preceding evening, stood in the area look...