May; vol. I

The minister of Comlie was an old man who had held that appointment for a great many years. In many respects he was like a traditional Scotch minister, but in others he did not...

Edward Fanshawe, the individual whose appearance at Tom Heriot’s funeral had excited Miss Jean’s curiosity so strongly, was, perhaps, about the last man in England to whom Mr. H...

Mr. Heriot did not come to luncheon. A tray carefully piled with everything that old Fleming could think of to tempt his master’s appetite was carried to him in the library; but...

The day after a great event is, in all kinds of circumstances, a difficult one. The remains of great excitement, not yet quite spent, make the air heavy, and produce innumerable...

“Go away, go away, you taupies!” said Fleming; “go away to your wark; what’s the use o’ a wheen women, girnin’ and greetin’ about the place? It’s a’ I can to do to keep things g...

Next morning life began as usual for the saddened household. Breakfast, which had once been so lively a meal, passed over in comparative silence. Mr. Charles, indeed, did what h...

When Marjory went upstairs for the night, she made a strenuous endeavour to get Tom’s papers in order for her father, and to ignore the one paper which had opened a door, as it...

It would be hopeless to describe the condition of Pitcomlie during the rest of that terrible day. In the hall was the young widow with her children, an important English nurse,...

He lingered the greater part of the day. Marjory took her place permanently by his bedside, where Fanshawe had been seated when she first appeared. She had allowed herself to be...

Some days passed on in a noiseless calm of suspense; suspense which dwelt chiefly in Marjory’s mind, and did not hang heavily upon anyone else. Mr. Charles, with the placidity o...

While her father and uncle were thus fuming over her absence, Marjory Hay-Heriot, with her little sister, had been making her way quietly about the little town of Comlie, whithe...

The house of Hay-Heriot had been established at Pitcomlie for more centuries than could easily be reckoned. It was neither very rich nor very great, but it was well connected, a...

The drawing-room was but dimly lighted when the party at Pitcomlie assembled in it for dinner, and Matilda had been so little seen as yet, that the absence of her widow’s cap ma...

Mr. Heriot’s will was an old one. As it was read, some of the listeners held their breaths with the strangest painful feeling of anachronism and sense of being suddenly plunged...

The letter of Mrs. Charles aroused a great consternation in the house of Pitcomlie; they did not venture to tell Mr. Heriot of it. Fanshawe went and called Mr. Charles out of hi...

Marjory, I am sorry to say, thought nothing at all of the interest she had excited; she was not so much as conscious of it; and she did not even think of Fanshawe, who was rathe...

“She cried a great deal; she is very young and pretty. Poor child!” said Marjory. “We did not say much to each other; how could we? Indeed, you know that I cannot talk.”

If Tom Heriot’s funeral had called all the gentry of Fife to do the family honour, it may be supposed that his father’s, following so soon after, and in such circumstances of ag...

The house of Pitcomlie lay very still and quiet in the fitful sunshine, when the daughters of the family reached its open door. The door stood always open, unsuspicious, disclos...

It would be vain to attempt to trace the manner in which this revulsion of feeling came about. Marjory had gone through the whole gamut of emotions in respect to the letter whic...

After this long journey, to step out into the bright daylight of a March morning--cold, but sunshiny; and into the unfamiliar clean little streets of an English country-town, ga...

The situation of the little party of strangers in the west wing of Pitcomlie for the week after their arrival was strange enough. They were in the house, but not of it. Partly o...

The Manse of Comlie had one window, which looked upon the churchyard--only one, as Mrs. Murray congratulated herself--and that in a room which was never used but where on occasi...