Lover or Friend

'I seek no copy now of life's first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future's epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world.'

Audrey never knew how long she sat there, shedding those healing tears, every one of which seemed to relieve her overcharged heart; it was a luxury to sit there in that cool sha...

'When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong; for when thou hast seen this thou wilt pity him, and wilt neith...

Half an hour later Audrey had finished her game, and had resisted all her partner's pleadings to give their opponents their revenge. She might feel tempted--Mr. Blake played so...

'Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected--a police in citizen's clothes--who are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least th...

'Try how the life of the good man suits thee: the life of him who is satisfied with his portion out of the whole, and satisfied with his own just acts and benevolent disposition...

'Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty, like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame, thou canst not mount up on the battlements...

'We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits--yet so as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings, as it should be among near relatives.'--E...

'It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens if, when they do wrong, it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through ignoranc...

'Sympathy or no sympathy, a man's love should no more fail towards his fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who altogether misunderstood it, like the rain whic...

'Measure thy life by loss instead of gain-- Not by wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice; And whose suffers most hath most t...

'Ah! life grows lovely where you are; Only to think of you gives light To my dark heart; within whose night Your image, though you hide afar, Glows like a lake-reflected star.'

There was certainly a tinge of Bohemianism in Audrey's nature. She delighted in any short-cut that took her out of the beaten track. A sudden and unexpected pleasure was far mor...

'Discreet reserve in a woman, like the distances kept by royal personages, contributes to maintain the proper reverence. Most of our pleasures are prized in proportion to the di...

The words escaped from Michael almost unconsciously; he hardly knew that he spoke them aloud; but in his inner consciousness he had no doubt at all of the course that ought to b...

Mrs. Blake was expecting them--had been expecting them for hours; Audrey could see that in a moment. The October evenings were chilly, and most people in Rutherford lighted a fi...

'Well I know what they feel. They gaze, and the evening wind Plays on their faces; they gaze-- Airs from the Eden of youth Awake and stir in their soul.'

'Still, it seems to me that love--true and profound love--should be a source of light and calm, a religion and a revelation, in which there is no place left for the lower victor...

'I will go to the Gray Cottage this afternoon,' was Audrey's first thought the next morning when she woke; but she kept this intention to herself when Geraldine came in, after b...

'When a man begins to do wrong, he cannot answer for himself how far he may be carried on. He does not see beforehand; he cannot know where he will find himself after the sin is...

Audrey never forgot the day when she first heard this sad story. It was on a winter's afternoon, and she and Mr. O'Brien were alone in the cottage. She remembered how the settin...

Audrey was sure it was the east wind that made everyone so unlike themselves the next morning. Bailey had told her that the wind was decidedly easterly, or, perhaps, more strict...

'When some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly, And silence against which you dare not cry Aches round you like a strong disease and new, Wha...

Michael listened in a sort of dream. He was telling himself all the time that his opportunity was come, and that it was incumbent on him not to sleep another night under his cou...

'Dear Mollie, your mother thinks she knows best, and no one can control her. Perhaps, if she does not like it--if the life be too hard--she will come out at the end of her novit...

'Oh dear, Miss Ross, what shall I do without you for seven whole weeks?' was Mollie's piteous lament one morning. Audrey was on her knees packing a huge travelling box, and Moll...

'There are some natures that cannot unfold under pressure, or in the presence of unregarding power. Hers was one. They require a clear space round them, the removal of everythin...

It may be doubted if either Audrey or her brother-in-law enjoyed their walk to Hillside. Mr. Harcourt felt that he had failed signally in his brotherly mission, and any sort of...

Dr. Ross had deferred telling his wife for more than one reason: he dreaded the effect on her emotional nature, and, above all things, he hated a scene. But for once he was agre...

'A solemn thing it is to me To look upon a babe that sleeps, Wearing in its spirit deeps The undeveloped mystery Of our Adam's taint and woe; Which, when they developed be, Will...

'Through that gloom he will see but a shadow appearing, Perceive but a voice as I come to his side; But deeper their voice grows, and nobler their bearing, Whose youth in the fi...

'Indeed, all faults, had they been ten times more and greater, would have been neutralised by that supreme expression of her features, to the unity of which every lineament in t...

In future days Audrey always looked back upon those seven weeks at Braemar with the same feelings with which one recalls the memory of some lake embosomed in hills, that one has...

Audrey was very busy the next morning unpacking and settling a hundred things with her mother and Mrs. Draper. She had fully expected that Mollie would have made her appearance...

Michael was still away. The business that detained him was not to be settled as easily as he had expected; there were complications--a host of minor difficulties. He was unwilli...

All her life long Audrey never forgot that long weary journey. The lateness of the hour compelled her to take a circuitous route to London. Dr. Ross accompanied her part of the...

The next morning, as Captain Burnett was strolling across the tennis-lawn in search of a shady corner where he could read his paper, he encountered Audrey. She was walking in th...

Audrey had not forgotten Mollie all this time. She kept her promise, and wrote to her frequently; and she had long letters from her in return. Mollie's girlish effusions were ve...

'My privilege is to be the spectator of my own life-drama, to be fully conscious of the tragi-comedy of my own destiny; and, more than that, to be in the secret of the tragi-com...

Audrey was able to fulfil her promise to Mollie the very next day, when she encountered Mrs. Blake unexpectedly some little way from the town. She was just turning down a lane w...

Captain Burnett had settled his business, and was returning again to Rutherford after more than a month's absence. He would willingly have lingered in town longer. Lonely as his...

'Thou art a girl of noble nature's crowning: A smile of thine is like an act of grace; Thou hast no noisome looks, no pretty frowning, Like daily beauties of a vulgar race. When...

'The beautiful souls of the world have an art of saintly alchemy, by which bitterness is converted into kindness, the gall of human experience into gentleness, ingratitude into...

over him. The fellow who told me--it was Donarton--mentioned that you were likely to take a lively interest in the news. Is that true, old man, or has Mr. Carlisle any nearer re...

'And she to him will reach her hand, And gazing in his eyes will stand, And know her friend and weep for glee, And cry, "Long, long, I've looked for thee."'

'We were apart; yet day by day I bade my heart more constant be. I bade it keep the world away, And grow a home for only thee; Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew, Like mine,...

'I had made up my mind to say this to him from the moment I heard he was in prison--he should have nothing more to do with me and the children. It was for their sake I said it.

Cyril knew where he should find Audrey; she was generally in her own little sitting-room until luncheon. Sometimes her mother or Mollie would be with her, but this morning he fe...

'And when God found in the hollow of His hand This ball of Earth among His other balls, And set it in His shining firmament, Between the greater and the lesser lights, He chose...

To all outward appearance she was well and cheerful, and spent her time much as usual--helping her mother and visiting her poor people in the morning, and in the afternoon atten...

'There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness...

'What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who has brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them out the outside of the wall, For s...

Captain Burnett had finished his troublesome piece of business, and was thinking of his return home. His friend was, metaphorically speaking, on his feet again, and Michael was...