Mary Lee

I went for my music lessons to one Monsieur Petrowski, a Polish refugee, who had just fled from his native land and was settling down in Tawborough. I made great progress with m...

Next day after dinner, when Aunt Jael had settled down for her doze, Grandmother called me upstairs to her bedroom, pulled out an old brown tin box from under the bed, unlocked...

Moreover, as the Old Maids of Tawborough were seven, six other ladies completed their seventieth year on this self-same day, to wit: Miss Sarah Tombstone, Miss Keturah Crabb, Mi...

Next morning Grandmother and I sallied forth. It was a bright spring day, with a high wind blowing. We went down Bear Street and along Boutport Street to where it joins the High...

Meeting!--one social sphere my Grandmother and Great-Aunt knew; their one earthly club, set, milieu; company of saints, little flock of the elect, assembling together of the cho...

I used to visit my mother's grave. Any one not knowing my Grandmother might have thought she would be glad. But no--"Don't 'ee do it, my dear. Once in a way 'tis right enough ma...

"There was something about it in Westward Ho! the book _he_ stole from me and burned just before you came. It said something about 'happy sports and mummers' plays,' and cakes a...

Villebecq Mademoiselle, who would play melodrama, was achieving much less in her chosen way of business than still slumbering Bear Lawn Mary, who had played at life. And now, in...

Here we found Mademoiselle Gros, already bonneted and shawled. I went over to the window, where my ears drank in a little comedy of pathetic explanation and injured silence; hum...

Every day and a good part of every night--for I rarely fell asleep till one or two o'clock--I was thinking, worrying, brooding, planning, dreaming. I too would sail to the Indie...

That rope-end beating was a bad one, but I can remember worse. The worst one of all came a year or so later, when I was about seven years old, and formed part of a series of eve...

I disliked Uncle Simeon, and did not want to leave my Grandmother. On the other hand I longed to see the world, and to get away from Aunt Jael. I must show her how glad I was at...

Soon after this, somewhere about my tenth birthday, in the early spring of 1858, an important relaxation in my rule of life was made. I was allowed, under strict limitations, to...

Uncle Simeon did not allow me to go for walks alone. Albert, however, who was my usual companion, got into the habit of leaving me as soon as we were away from the Quay, with a...

Such a life and such a household encouraged unchildlike emotions. I was puzzled far too soon in life by the puzzle of all life. I could not reconcile the wrath of Jehovah with t...

Down in my heart I knew it was not true. There was belief in me, and awe; but of that passion for God which I envied in her, no semblance. If it were really love I felt for Him...

My Grandmother told me that Lord Tawborough was looking around for "a good opening" for me. The interval of waiting was to be spent perfecting my French and music, and I was to...

It seems to have been a great year in the history books. Fires of revolution sweeping over Europe; half the capitals aflame. From Prague to Palermo, from Paris to Pesth, the peo...

My first memory in this life is of a moving. I am sitting in a high chair, kept in by a stick placed through a hole in each arm. I am surrounded by the utmost disarray. In front...

"You're to get up at once. Your uncle says you are to spend a week in the attic for your naughtiness, so get up and dress quickly. I'll come back to take you in a few minutes. Y...

Precisely what had taken place I was not told, but according to Mrs. Cheese neither my Grandmother nor my Great-Aunt had minced their words. Aunt Jael, particularly, must have b...

From the first page I struck up a living friendship with the Bedford tinker, though he had been in heaven for near two hundred years. I understood him as he talked aloud to hims...

The Countess cornered me next morning for her "little talk," conducting me to her own particular apartment. Mademoiselle Gros was present. She always was, I soon found: a famili...

Certain Saints, after tasting for years the privilege of fellowship, had left us: for chapel, or church, or nowhere. Others were becoming irregular in their attendance or took p...

All night I did not sleep. Conscience busy with the day past and fear anxious for the day ahead gave me quite enough to think about, and I was feverish and overwrought. As soon...

There came into view a shining white mansion, massive, square-looking, three-storied, pierced with high windows and covered like a mosaic with newly-painted white Venetian shutt...

Immediately after the funeral, I left the desolate Château, the desolate Countess, the country of France soon to be made desolate, and, after nearly four years' absence, returne...

The one happening of that time which was able to summon the Mary of this record from her torpor was outwardly the most vainglorious of all. I can see now that this was natural....

Uncle Simeon did not improve on closer acquaintance; nor on closer reflection did my chance of foregoing that acquaintance improve. Just as he abandoned all pretence of being ki...

"Peace, sister! All I means is this 'ere. God A'mighty meant us to travel on our two legs or by the four legs of four-footed beasts. 'Tis only the Devil as can want to go any ot...

It was odd to see normal relations resumed next day at table. Abnormally normal indeed, for we were all a little too much at our ease, a trifle too friendly and natural. There w...

Except for the cab-drives between quay and station at Southampton and Havre, and three half-days in Rouen, I had seen no town whatsoever outside North Devon. Par_ee_! Par_ee_! m...

In the slow weeks that followed my Grandmother's death I never came face to face with my own sorrow. My brain told me the sorrow was there, but my will, reinforced by a numbness...

We had arranged to spend a certain day in Rouen, but when the day came I did not feel well: I was tired and inclined to be feverish. The first sign of a coming illness, to which...

Soon after our return to Normandy I found on my breakfast-plate an envelope in my Grandmother's handwriting. As a rule her letters came in small square envelopes of the ordinary...

The latter soon pieced things together for me. Gabrielle had found me in a feverish half-unconscious state on the dining-room floor. She had got me upstairs, and hastily sent to...

Grandmother and Aunt Jael were failing every hour. On the afternoon of the morrow of my misery old Doctor le Mesurier took me aside--I was the mistress now--and told me that for...

My life was now spent in the two bedrooms where my Great-Aunt and Grandmother lay, and in crossing the corridor from one to the other as Aunt Jael's voice or my own sense of Gra...

I ate and slept, and took walks in the park and the country-lanes; I comforted the ever-shrivelling Countess; I read incessantly. But I did not live. The life of my soul was som...

"Not a syllable! It is not required. Business can be wound up in a few hours; and I do not doubt I shall find a successor who will serve me _not less well_ than you. Gentlemanly...

At my last Breaking of Bread many allusions were made in prayer to my departure for foreign lands. If I was not going there avowedly in His service, none the less let His servic...

Before writing to Aunt Martha I waited for the moment in my aged kinswomen's increasing weakness when Conscience told me it was for their sakes only I was summoning her, and not...

At my Grandmother's funeral Lord Tawborough had said: "Miss Traies, if ever you need any advice or service of any kind, write and let me know, will you? It is the only kindness...

Everywhere there was a cold and mistlike darkness. Shapes emerged. Billows of whiter mist loomed nearer through the darkness, came from every corner of utmost space. The dark he...

Aunt Jael's leadership of the Seven Old Maids of Tawborough was maintained in death. It was edifying to note that just as sixty years ago they had briskly emulated her Conversio...