Love's bitterest cup

Judge Paul McCann, an old bachelor, who was one of his most valuable patients—a chronic patient dying of good living, and taking a long, long time to do it in—gave a heavy dinne...

Now that all the distracting excitement was over, and she could think calmly of the circumstances, they all combined to distress, mortify and humiliate her. The remembrance of t...

“Rosemary, my dear, I wish you would not dance all the time with young Roland Bayard when you happen to be at a party with him,” said the grave and dignified Miss Susannah Grand...

The farm was managed by Jesse Barnes, the capable overseer, and the sales were arranged by Mr. Copp, the family agent, who remitted the revenues of the estate in quarterly insta...

To explain the mysterious letter written by Elfrida Force to her housekeeper, we must condense the family history of the last three years, which had passed without any incident...

“Angleton! Give it to me!” peremptorily exclaimed Abel Force, reaching his hand and taking the sheet from his daughter, who yielded it up and then covered her eyes with her hand...

Letters notifying him of the death of Angus Anglesea were promptly written to him by every member of the family, so eager were they all to convey the news and express themselves...

With the assembling of Congress, in the first week of December, the usual crowd of officials, pleasure-seekers, fortune hunters, adventurers and adventuresses poured into Washin...

Mrs. Anglesea had the edge of her skirt drawn up as usual, for, as she often declared, she would rather toast her shins before the fire than eat when she was hungry, or sleep wh...

“Talkin’ o’ walentines,” said Miss Sibby, apropos of nothing, “when I was young there wa’n’t no walentines made to sell. They was only made by ladies with fine taste for the wor...

Congress adjourned on the fourth of March, and within a week from that time the crowd that always follows in their wake left Washington, and the city dropped into comparative re...

The first of April was a perfect day. The sky was a canopy of deepest, clearest blue. The sun shone in cloudless splendor. The trees in all the parks were in full leaf or blosso...

Odalite wore a white silk-trained dress, with a lace overdress looped with lilies of the valley, and a lace veil fastened to her hair by a spray of the same delicate flower. She...

The intruder was Col. Angus Anglesea, who caught Odalite to his breast, and with his arm firmly clasping her waist, stood, haughty, insolent and defiant, in the midst of the thu...

For it was no less than a writ of _habeas corpus_, issued by a judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, ordering Abel Force to produce the body of Odalite Anglese...

Odalite was the last to come in. Her face was deathly white, and showed signs of an anxious and sleepless night. Yet she greeted the whole party with a wan smile and a slight bo...

It was still raining hard, when they arrived—so hard that when the carriage drew up before the broad flight of steps leading up to the main entrance of the building, Mr. Force,...

The venerable judge now turned his face, impassive as that of the Sphinx, toward Abel Force, who throughout the trying ordeal of Anglesea’s false testimony and insulting demeano...

At this moment there was a slight movement at the door, and Leonidas Force entered the room, advanced and bowed to the judge, and then handed a written paper to the father of Od...

“Uncle, it is but two o’clock. Can we not drive immediately to St. John’s rectory, and have the interrupted marriage of yesterday completed? I suppose we would have to begin aga...

Mr. Force went at once to his writing desk to write letters—one to the New York agent of the Cunard line of ocean steamers; another to his overseer at Mondreer, and a third to M...

Yet the Forces all responded in the most cordial manner to these effusive greetings, in which Mrs. Force and Odalite detected an undertone of sadness and sympathy which both mot...

When all the greetings were over the family were allowed to go upstairs—still in custody of the dog, who kept his eye on them—and take off their traveling suits.

“Now, ole ’oman, I want you to go all over the house ’long o’ me, to see for yourself how I’ve done my duty,” said the lady from Wild Cats’, as she followed Mrs. Force from the...

“Welcome back to us! Dear friend! Only this morning we heard of your arrival through Ned Grandiere, who came to my office early to ask me to call and see one of the colored folk...

One day Le spent in going around the neighborhood to see the old friends and neighbors, whom he had not seen for more than three years. The next day he stayed home at Mondreer,...

“Yes,” he continued, with something that he had been saying when the girls came in—“yes, I have brought all the evidence we can possibly want or use—an overwhelming mass of evid...

The three carriages conveying the large party from the old manor house rolled on through the familiar woods, so often traversed by the young people of the household in going to...

Saturday, the twenty-eighth of May, was a very fine day. As early as seven in the morning the hacks engaged to take our travelers to the steamer were standing before the ladies’...

“My lord ordered me, sir, if the weather should be fine, to bring the barouches for the ladies, as they would be so much pleasanter,” the man explained, touching his hat, as he...

A tall, fair, delicate-looking patrician of about forty years of age, clothed in an India silk dressing gown, leaning on the arm of his gray-haired valet, and further supporting...

For some miles the road followed the line of the coast in a southerly direction, and then diverged a little to the eastward until it reached the ancient and picturesque town of...

The girl was a fresh, wholesome-looking English lass, with rosy cheeks and rippling red hair. She wore a dark blue dress of some cheap woolen material, with a white apron and wh...

They met in the neat parlor, where the air was delicious with the fragrance of fresh white, pink and blue hyacinths that filled the flower pots in the broad window.

The lad came up to the counter. He was a fine, wholesome-looking boy of about fifteen years of age, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes, and closely cut, light brown hair.

Leaving the office of the Angleton _Advertiser_, and turning up the village street, they repassed the blacksmith’s, the general dealer’s, the doctor’s surgery, the lawyer’s offi...

“Noo drive the gentlefolks to t’ east o’ t’ park, and roond by the musselman. I’ll cut across through t’ brush and speak to t’ keeper, and meet you there. It will be all roight,...

“If you will give me leave, maister, I’ll go roond and speak to Mistress Bolton, t’ hoosekeeper, and get her to coom and open t’ great door,” said Jonah Kirby, as he got down fr...

He took the pipe from his mouth the instant he heard the sound of wheels and he held out his hand to welcome Wynnette as she ran up to him.

It was a bright June morning when our small party of travelers, having breakfasted well at the Anglesea Arms, and settled with the landlady, once more entered the dilapidated on...

“Then we had better go to our rooms at once, Le, and get some of the dust of travel off us before we go to dinner,” said Mr. Force, as he followed Wynnette upstairs, though in a...

While their elders consulted together in the library the four young girls, Odalite, Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary, accompanied by Le and escorted by Joshua, walked across the cour...

“Yes, and I came here to get you to tell me all you know of that ancient ruin. You have been housekeeper here for a long time, and you must know lots about it.”

A horrid specter rises on my sight Close to my side, plain and palpable In all clear seeming and close circumstance. What form is this? Oh, speak if voice thou hast! Tell me wha...

“It was fifty years ago, my bairnie—fifty years ago. Earl Hardston ruled at Enderby. Distant cousin he was to yon present Earl Francis——What was that? Eh! nothing but the flap o...

“Ah, well, as the days and the weeks passed I got mortal tired of waiting for him to own my girl his wife, and take her to the great house with blowing of trumpets, and waving o...

“The sky is red in the east. Go now, my bairn. Thou art a good child, and brave to dare the ghosts of the old hall and to hear the tale of an old crone. And it is true, bairn; i...

All looked at the girl in some surprise. With all her oddities, Wynnette was not used to make such speeches as that. And now, for the first time, they noticed that Wynnette’s fa...

The Earl of Enderby could not reconcile all his knowledge—his lifelong knowledge of Angus Anglesea, his schoolmate at Harrow; his classmate at Oxford, his brother-in-arms in Ind...