Mrs. Geoffrey

"I can't, because I don't know myself. It is my nature. However depressed I may feel at one instant, the next a passing thought may change my tears into a laugh. Perhaps that is...

The stars are coming out one by one,--slowly, tranquilly, as though haste has got no part with them. The heavens are clothed in azure. A single star, that sits apart from all th...

It is ten days later,--ten dreary, interminable days, that have struggled into light, and sunk back again into darkness, leaving no trace worthy of remembrance in their train. "...

"But why not to-night?" asks her Grace, who has noticed with curiosity the girl's refusal to dance with a lanky young man in a hussar uniform, who had evidently made it the busi...

But when to-morrow comes it brings to him a very different Mona from the one he saw yesterday. A pale girl, with great large sombrous eyes and compressed lips, meets him, and pl...

Sleep, even when she does get to bed, refuses to settle upon Mona's eyelids. During the rest of the long hours that mark the darkness she lies wide awake, staring upon vacancy,...

Lights are blazing, fiddles are sounding; all the world is abroad to-night. Even still, though the ball at the Towers has been opened long since by Mona and the Duke of Lauderda...

"Put down your pistol, sir," she says, hastily. "Would you fire on a woman?" Her tone, though hurried, is not oppressed with fear. She even advances a few steps in his direction...

It is early morn. "The first low breath of waking day stirs the wide air." On bush and tree and opening flower the dew lies heavily, like diamonds glistening in the light of the...

Time, with lovers, "flies with swallows' wings;" they neither feel nor heed it as it passes, so all too full of haste the moments seem. They are to them replete with love and ha...

"Not very," says Geoffrey. "It seems only just now that Mickey and the dogs left us." Together they examine his watch, by the light of the moon, and see that it is quite ten o'c...

About half-past two next day they start for Anadale. Not Violet, or Captain Rodney, who have elected to go on a mission of their own, nor Nicholas, who has gone up to London.

It is the day of Lady Chetwoode's ball, or to be particular, for critics "prove unkind" these times, it is the day to which belongs the night that has been selected for Lady Che...

There is no disfigurement about him to be seen, no stain of blood, no ugly mark; yet he is touched by the pale hand of the destroyer, and is sinking, dying, withering beneath it...

It is quite half-past six; and though there is no light in the room, save the glorious flames given forth by the pine logs that lie on the top of the coals, still one can see th...

It is ten days later. The air is growing brisker, the flowers bear no new buds. More leaves are falling on the woodland paths, and the trees are throwing out their last bright a...

"I expect I know more than most about her," says Nolly, who is enjoying himself immensely among the sponge, and the plum-cakes. "I told her the AEsthetic was likely to call this...

The blow so long expected, yet so eagerly and hopefully scoffed at with obstinate persistency, falls at last (all too soon) upon the Towers. Perhaps it is not the very final blo...

It is the 14th of December, and "bitter chill." Upon all the lawns and walks at the Towers, "Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord," has laid its white winding-sheet. In the l...

HOW GEOFFREY TELLS HOME SECRETS, AND HOW MONA COMMENTS THEREON--HOW DEATH STALKS RAMPANT IN THEIR PATH--AND HOW, THOUGH GEOFFREY DECLINES TO "RUN AWAY," HE STILL "LIVES TO FIGHT...

"Must you really go, Geoffrey?--really?" asks Mona, miserably, looking the very personification of despair. She has asked the same question in the same tone ever since early daw...

"Yes, Geoffrey and I have made a discovery,--a most important one,--and it has lain heavy on our breasts all day. Now tell them everything about last night, Geoff, from beginnin...

Once again they are all at the Towers. Doatie and her brother--who had returned to their own home during March and April--have now come back again to Lady Rodney, who is ever an...

HOW GEOFFREY RETURNS TO HIS ALLEGIANCE--HOW HE DISCOVERS HIS DIVINITY DEEP IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SOME MYSTIC RITES WITHIN THE COOL PRECINCTS OF HER TEMPLE--AND HOW HE SEEKS TO R...

"Oh! catch him! _do_ catch him!" cries Mona, "Look, there he is again! Don't you see?" with growing excitement. "Over there, under that bush. Why on earth can't you see him? Ha!...

"Come in, come in," he begins, cheerily, and then, catching sight of Mona's pale face, stops short. "Why, what has come to ye?" cries he, aghast, glancing from his niece to Rodn...

"The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night." The dusk is slowly creeping up over all the land, the twilight is coming on apace. As the day was, so is the g...

In the house of Rodney there is mourning and woe. Horror has fallen upon it, and something that touches on disgrace. Lady Rodney, leaning back in her chair with her scented hand...

The momentous Friday comes at last, and about noon Mona and Geoffrey start for the Towers. They are not, perhaps, in the exuberant spirits that should be theirs, considering the...

Mr. Darling is a flaxen-haired young gentleman of about four-and-twenty, with an open and ingenuous countenance, and a disposition cheerful to the last degree. He is positively...

These last advance in a leisurely manner up the room, yet with somewhat of the sneaking air of those who are in the possession of embarrassing news that must be told before much...

All through the night Mona scarcely shuts her eyes, so full is her mind of troubled and perplexing thoughts. At last her brain grows so tired that she cannot pursue any subject...

"Well have you got it?" asks he, in a whisper. Mystery seems to encircle them and to make heavy the very air they breathe. In truth, I think it is the veil of secrecy that envel...

To gain Lady Rodney's friendship is a more difficult thing than Mona in her ignorance had imagined, and she is determined to be ice itself to her poor little guest. As for her l...

As hour follows upon hour, even the most poignant griefs grow less. Nature sooner or later will come to the rescue, and hope "springing eternal" will cast despair into the backg...

Now, old Sir George Rodney, grandfather of the present baronet, had two sons, Geoffrey and George. Now, Geoffrey he loved, but George he hated. And so great by years did this ha...

Jenkins, the antediluvian butler, proves himself a man of his word. There are, evidently, "no two ways" about Jenkins. "Seeking the seclusion that her chamber grants" about ten...

Violet and Dorothy are to be married next month, both on the same day, at the same hour, in the same church,--St. George's Hanover Square, without telling. From old Lord Steyne'...

"I don't see why I shouldn't put in a month there very comfortably," says Geoffrey, indolently, pulling the ears of a pretty, saucy little fat terrier that sits blinking at him,...