Love Me Little, Love Me Long

THE new guest's manner of presenting himself with his stick over his shoulder, and his carpet-bag on his back, subjected him to a battery of stares from Kenealy, Talboys, Founta...

THE nation had passed through the years of exhaustion and depression that follow a long war; its health had returned, and its elastic vigor was already reviving, when two remark...

A LARGE aspiration is a rarity; but who has not some small ambition, none the less keen for being narrow--keener, perhaps? Mrs. Bazalgette burned to be great by dress; Mr. Fount...

“Is that what you call being calm, David? Let me alone--don't slobber me. I am sure I wish she had said, 'No.' If I had thought she would come I would never have asked her.”

MR. FOUNTAIN'S grief was violent; the more so, perhaps, that it was not pure sorrow, but heated with anger and despair. He had not only lost the creature he loved better than an...

As the hour of Lucy's departure drew near, Mr. Fountain became anxious to see her betrothed to his friend, for fear of accidents. “You had better propose to her in form, or auth...

TO-MORROW Lucy had agreed to sail, and in the boat Mr. Talboys was to ask and win her band. But from the first Mr. Fountain had never a childlike confidence in the scheme, and h...

LUCY was not called on to write any more formal invitations to Mr. Talboys. Her uncle used merely to say to her: “Talboys dines with us to-day.” She made no remark; she respecte...

SUCH was Mr. Hardie at twenty-five, and his townspeople said: “If he is so wise now he is a boy, what in Heaven's name will he be at forty?” To sixty the provincial imagination...

NEARLY a quarter of a century ago, Lucy Fountain, a young lady of beauty and distinction, was, by the death of her mother, her sole surviving parent, left in the hands of her tw...

Three days elapsed, and no invitation to Font Abbey; on this his happiness cooled of itself. But when day after day rolled by, and no Font Abbey, he was dashed, uneasy, and, abo...

This does not sound logical, but that is only because the logic is so subtle and swift. She meant something of this kind: “I am of a yielding nature; I might have sacrificed mys...

“Why so, Mr. Dodd?” objected Lucy gently. “I am not so weak as you think me. Do not keep the truth from me. I share the danger; let me share the sense of danger, too. You shall...

THAT same evening, Mrs. Bazalgette, being alone with Lucy in the drawing-room, put her arm round that young lady's waist, and lovingly, not seriously, as a man might have been a...

MR. FOUNTAIN, Miss Fountain, and Mr. Talboys started to go on the boating expedition. As they were getting into the boat, Mr. Fountain felt a little ill, and begged to be excuse...

A FABLE tells us a fowler one day saw sitting in tree a wood-pigeon. This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole fro...

THAT ready-minded lady extricated herself from the pots, and wriggled out of the moral situation. “I was a listener, dear! an unwilling listener; but now I do not regret it. How...

Lucy's twenty-first birthday dawned, but it was not to her the gay exulting day it is to some. Last night her uncle and aunt had gone a step further, and, instead of kissing her...

DAVID had one advantage over others that were now hunting Lucy. Mrs. Wilson had unwittingly given him pretty plain directions how to find her farmhouse; and as Eve, in the exerc...

NEXT morning the house was in an uproar. Servants ran to and fro, and the fish-pond was dragged at Mr. Fountain's request. But on these occasions everybody claims a right to spe...

ARTHUR was bundled off to a private tutor, and the Dodds invited to Font Abbey no more, and Talboys dined there three days a week. So far, David Dodd was in a poor and miserable...

THEY had been married a week. A slight change, but quite distinct to an observer of her sex, bloomed in Lucy's face and manner. A new beauty was in her face--the blossom of wife...

THE skipper of the ship, hearing a commotion on deck, came up, and, taking off his cap, made Lucy a bow in a style remote from an English sailor's. She courtesied to him, and, t...

David groaned. “If I didn't think as much. I heard the mill going. Ah! Eve, my girl, your jawing-tackle is too well hung. Eve is a good sister to me, Miss Lucy, and, where I am...

She hinted broadly at the viper of Aesop, and indicated more faintly an animal that, when one bestows the choicest favors on it, turns and rends one. Then, becoming suddenly jus...

DAVID and Eve sat together at their little breakfast, and pressed each other to eat; but neither could eat. David's night excursion had filled Eve with new misgivings. It was th...

THE man whom Mr. Bazalgette introduced so smoothly and off-hand to Lucy Fountain exercised a terrible influence over her life, as you will see by and by. This alone would make i...

MR. FOUNTAIN sat at breakfast opposite his niece with a twinkle set in his eye like a cherry-clack in a tree, relishing beforehand her smiles, and blushes, and gratitude to him...

By some mighty instinct Mrs. Wilson knew when to come in. She came to the door just one minute after Lucy had capitulated, and, turning the handle, but without opening the door,...

MR. FOUNTAIN remained in the town waiting for his niece's return. Six o'clock came--no boat. Eight o'clock--no boat, and a heavy gale blowing. He went down to the beach in great...

I HAVE already noticed that Lucy, after capitulation, laid down her arms gracefully and sensibly. When she was asked to name a very early day for the wedding, she opposed no chi...