Life-tangles

THE day after to-morrow will be a great day in my life, for my mother is coming home with the dear little twins, and they are expected to arrive early in the afternoon. What joy!

"It is not a question of prettiness," she said, "nor of features at all. The look comes and goes. And you are pretty enough for my eyes. A mother sees differently, you know, fro...

UP early this morning, and had a whole hour's practice before breakfast. Mother looked so pleased; and Clarissa and Juliet have really been quite kind. If people would always be...

UNCLE Basil Ramsay is coming for a fortnight's visit, and I have not seen him for years and years; indeed, I can hardly remember him at all. He lives so far off, and goes about...

I tried to mutter some sort of thanks; and if only we had been alone, I think I would have begged his pardon. But they were all round, so it did not seem possible. Ought I to as...

HERE I have been ever since Saturday evening, and I might have been here for weeks, judging from my own feelings. It seems "ages" since I said good-bye to them all, and yet I am...

I had not heard the name before, but I noticed it directly, because of Millicent's face. One of the children said something about him, and I saw her in a moment flush up, such a...

YESTERDAY I could not get hold of Millicent, but to-day I made her come out for a walk. She said she could spare half-an-hour. And as soon as we were outside the town, I asked h...

It is beautiful to see him with aunt Marian. His manner to her is so gentle, even reverent, and at the same time protecting. He looks so strong and big and full of life, while s...

To-day I told aunt Marian a little of what I mean to be and do, and how I intend to help Mother in every possible way. My head seemed so full of the thought that I could not kee...

It has been a wonderful day to me—such a day as does not come often in one's life. This evening I feel half-dazed, and it is no use to think of sleeping, so I may just as well j...

ON Wednesday was the wedding, and it went off all right. Clarissa really did look rather handsome, and I do not dislike her husband. He seemed to me a little dull,—at least, in...

I was called off from my writing by Addie. The child seemed scared, and she said I must go to Mother. And I ran downstairs, and found Mother looking like a ghost, begging and im...

TO-DAY, for once, my mother and I have had a quiet talk,—and if I could have guessed what Mother would say, I would have gone anywhere to have escaped it.

EXACTLY six years to-day since last I wrote in this little old journal of mine. I had forgotten the thing utterly. It had gone out of my mind—pushed out, I suppose, as lesser in...

MR. FARRARS is still the rector of Wayatford, and Millicent is still at home, still unmarried. He looks about the same as when I saw him last, only a good deal more grey and a l...

A BITTERLY cold winter, and Emmie is so delicate as to be a perpetual anxiety, while Addie is the very picture of health. But for Emmie, we should have just now almost no cares....

Clarissa asked her husband's cousins, Mr. and Mrs. James Jervis, and also an old General Monk. That made the six. Mr. Jervis had of course to take her in, and General Monk was p...

"Please don't. You really are mistaken! I know what I am saying. I know a great deal more about him than you do. And I know why he likes to come."

When he first spoke of calling, Clarissa asked him to dinner. He said he had promised to dine with an old aunt of his, but he would be free by half-past eight, and he would walk...

I left my letter to Mother lying on my table,—it was just a scrawl, saying I would go to aunt Marian's to-morrow—and I went downstairs. Perhaps the writing in my journal had bee...

I write to Ernest constantly, and he to me; at least, he writes almost every day, which is as often as I do. His letters are all just exactly what they should be. Yet sometimes...

THIS morning I went to the Vicarage, hoping for another talk with Millicent. There are things which I do so want to understand. I cannot sleep at night, going over and over diff...