"My Novel" — Complete

Audely Egerton was alone in his apartment. A heavy sleep had come over him, shortly after Harley and Randal had left the house in the early morning; and that sleep continued til...

Nora Avenel had fled from the boyish love of Harley L’Estrange, recommended by Lady Lansmere to a valetudinarian relative of her own, Lady Jane Horton, as companion. But Lady La...

Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed,--crept through bylanes, and...

But while Harley had thus occupied the hours of night with cares for the living, Audley Egerton had been in commune with the dead. He had taken from the pile of papers amidst wh...

In the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat the mayor. On either hand of that dignitary now appeared the candidates of the respective parties,--to his right, Audle...

The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay window, which (in itself of di...

Whenever Audley joined the other guests of an evening--while Harley was perhaps closeted with Levy and committeemen, and Randal was going the round of the public-houses--the one...

All that day Harley L’Estrange had been more than usually mournful and dejected. Indeed, the return to scenes associated with Nora’s presence increased the gloom that had settle...

“BRETHREN! every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that He would have freed an existence so brief from the cares and sorrows...

We have seen Squire Hazeldean (proud of the contents of his pocketbook, and his knowledge of the mercenary nature of foreign women) set off on his visit to Beatrice di Negra. Ra...

Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante. A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt beside Violante, hiding her face, an...

The squire’s carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and coloured them a beautiful dark blue, with white border--an...

In my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in patriarchal state,--not exactly under the fig-tree he has planted, but before the stocks he has reconstructed,--Squire Haz...

Brief as had been his absence, the host could see that, in the interval, a great and notable change had come over the spirit of his company. Some of those who lived in the town...

Buy Frank had arrived in Curzon Street, leaped from the cabriolet, knocked at the door, which was opened by a strange-looking man in a buff waistcoat and corduroy smalls. Frank...

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Randal. “Mr. Egerton does not object to it; and as I do not return to Eton, I may have no other opportunity of seeing Frank for some time. I ought not to...

Curious to learn what had passed between Beatrice and Frank, and deeply interested in all that could oust Frank out of the squire’s goodwill, or aught that could injure his own...

The scene is at Lansmere Park,--a spacious pile, commenced in the reign of Charles II.; enlarged and altered in the reign of Anne. Brilliant interval in the History of our Natio...

With his hands behind him, and his head drooping on his breast, slow, stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided along the streets on leaving the Italian’s house. Across the sche...

DICK.--“As an undertaker! The fact is, there are two parties among the Yellows as there are in the Church,--High Yellow and Low Yellow. Leonard has made great way with the High...

RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts within the walls to which he condemned Violante. Resuming his spectacles, and wrapped in his cloak, he occasionally sallied...

Before a table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father’s house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L’Estrange, sorting or destroying letters and papers,--an ordinary symptom...

A new Reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings. Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast...

Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank’s lodgings, and after being closeted with the young Guardsman an hour or so, took his way to Limmer’s hotel, and asked for Mr...

“He has had the assurance to lay wagers that he will win the hand of your heiress. I know that too; and therefore I have come to England,--first to baffle his design--for I do n...

We are at Norwood in the sage’s drawing-room. Violante has long since retired to rest. Harley, who had accompanied the father and daughter to their home, is still conversing wit...

The next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly patrician, equipage stopped at Riccabocca’s garden-gate. Giacomo, who, from a bedroom window, had caught sight of its wind...

“Friends and neighbours, I thank you kindly for coming round me this day, and for showing so much interest in me and mine. My cousin was not born amongst you as I was, but you h...

The marehesa regained her house, which was in Curzon Street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance all trace of the tears she had...

In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern, gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his childhood could scarcely have recognized a...

The glory of Bond Street is no more. The title of Bond Street Lounger has faded from our lips. In vain the crowd of equipages and the blaze of shops: the renown of Bond Street w...

Helen and Violante had been conversing together, and Helen had obeyed her guardian’s injunction, and spoken, though briefly, of her positive engagement to Harley. However much V...

“Br the Lord, Harry!” cried the squire, as he stood with his wife in the park, on a visit of inspection to some first-rate Southdowns just added to his stock,--“by the Lord, if...

Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such odd, out-of-...

Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who was in the firm belief that Violante...

It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not present at the parson’s Discourse; but that valuable functionary was far otherwise engaged,--indeed, during the summer month...

Early the next day Randal Leslie was in the luxurious business-room of Baron Levy. How unlike the cold Doric simplicity of the statesman’s library! Axminster carpets, three inch...

“Have you forgiven Helen?” asked Violante, beginning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. “Helen, the poor child! I have nothing in her to forgive, much to tha...

Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall), at which he had got out of the coach. He...

While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty, neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, bright had been the opening day and smooth the upward path of Randal...

Harley L’Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child’s face, and she is listening with a smile,...

In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned back to the parsonage, they looke...

The morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean’s to Rood Hall, the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor, and minister of a high department in...

Burley’s mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that “his stomach would survive all the rest of him.” That which in Burley surviv...

“Let the carriage go to the Clarendon,” said Harley to his servant; “I and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an occasion to serve your old friend...

Towards the evening, Randal was riding fast on the road to Norwood. The arrival of Harley, and the conversation that had passed between that nobleman and Randal, made the latter...

A full and happy hour passed away in Harley’s questions and Leonard’s answers,--the dialogue that naturally ensued between the two, on the first interview after an absence of ye...

The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his military duties,...

The borough town of Lansmere was situated in the county adjoining that which contained the village of Hazeldean. Late at noon the parson crossed the little stream which divided...

Lord L’Estrange did not proceed at once to Riecabocca’s house. He was under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield easily to the lukewarm claim of frien...

“Enough,” said he, at the close. “Mr. Fairfield (for so we will yet call him) shall see me to-night; and if apology be due to him, I will make it. At the same time, it shall be...

The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a person on whom he lifted his eyes in t...

When the scenes in some long diorama pass solemnly before us, there is sometimes one solitary object, contrasting, perhaps, the view of stately cities or the march of a mighty r...

If the vigour of Harley’s address had taken by surprise both friend and foe, not one in that assembly--not even the conscience-stricken Egerton--felt its effect so deeply as the...

“It is a sweet pretty place,” thought Frank, as he opened the gate which led across the fields to the Casino, that smiled down upon him with its plaster pilasters. “I wonder, th...

Frank looked right ahead, and saw a square house that, in spite of modern sash windows, was evidently of remote antiquity. A high conical roof; a stack of tall quaint chimney-po...

Lord L’Estrange threw himself on a sofa, and leaned his cheek on his hand thoughtfully. Audley Egerton sat near him, with his arms folded, and gazed on his friend’s face with a...

On the following Monday Dr. Morgan’s shabby man-servant opened the door to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former visitor. A few days before, embrowned with h...

Egerton heard the well-known step advancing near and nearer up the corridor, heard the door open and reclose; and he felt, by one of those strange and unaccountable instincts wh...

That night, after the labours of the day, Randal had gained the sanctuary of his own room, and seated himself at his table, to prepare the heads of the critical speech he would...

Whatever, may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean’s designs upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian had counted upon securing the ser...

If any one could be more surprised at seeing Lord L’Estrange at the house of Madame di Negra that evening than the fair hostess herself, it was Randal Leslie. Something instinct...

Therewith the captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy reciting the catalogue of the ships in Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, and learning them...

“Hip-Hip-Hurrah!” Such was the sound that greeted our young traveller as he reached the inn door,--a sound joyous in itself, but sadly out of harmony with the feelings which the...

“Well,” said Richard, “I am not the sort of man you expected, eh? Take time to recover yourself.” And with these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, threw himself b...

It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence of his young charge: an object...

“Lights!” cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. “Lights in the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark.” Lord L’Estrange followed the usurer upstairs; admired everything,...

LEONARD (astonished).--“Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is not in Lord Bacon? Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every newspaper, and in almost every speech...

Harley L’Estrange was seated alone in his apartments. He had just put down a volume of some favourite classic author, and he was resting his hand firmly clenched upon the book....

John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a village near Ealing, who had scraped and saved and pinched, to send his son to an excellent provincial school in a norther...

Nothing to Leonard could as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be co...

Audley Egerton stands on his hearth alone. During the short interval that has elapsed since we last saw him, events had occurred memorable in English history, wherewith we have...

“Per Bacco!” said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny’s shoulder, and bending down to look into his face,--“per Bacco! my young friend, do you sit here from choice or nece...

As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted the distant and admonitory manner whi...

The leading members of the Blue Committee were invited to dine at the Park, and the hour for the entertainment was indeed early, as there might be much need yet of active exerti...

Randal’s acute faculty of comprehension had long since surmised the truth that Beatrice’s views and temper of mind had been strangely and suddenly altered by some such revolutio...

At last they came within easy reach of London; but Leonard had resolved not to enter the metropolis fatigued and exhausted, as a wanderer needing refuge, but fresh and elate, as...

The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising, she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were heavy, her hand burned like fire....

“Ah, my son!” said the parson, “if I wished to prove the value of religion, would you think I served it much if I took as my motto, ‘Religion is power’? Would not that be a base...

While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendours that surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his mother’s cottage and the sparkling fount in...

Oh, Helen, fair Helen,--type of the quiet, serene, unnoticed, deep-felt excellence of woman! Woman, less as the ideal that a poet conjures from the air, than as the companion of...

There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal sensation amongst the humbler classes.

Randal--with many misgivings at Lord L’Estrange’s tone, in which he was at no loss to detect a latent irony--proceeded to Norwood. He found Riccabocca exceedingly cold and dista...

Who has not seen, who not admired, that noble picture by Daniel Maclise, which refreshes the immortal name of my ancestor Caxton! For myself, while with national pride I heard t...

Leonard and Helen settled themselves in two little chambers in a small lane. The neighbourhood was dull enough, the accommodation humble; but their landlady had a smile. That wa...

“Pleasant young men, those,” said Levy, with a slight sneer, as he threw himself into an easy-chair and stirred the fire. “And not at all proud; but, to be sure, they are--under...

It had not been without much persuasion on the part of Jackeymo that Riccabocca had consented to settle himself in the house which Randal had recommended to him. Not that the ex...

In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winni...

The first people at Screwstown were indisputably the Pompleys. Colonel Pompley was grand, but Mrs. Pompley was grander. The colonel was stately in right of his military rank and...

“Already?” said Helen, with faltering accents, as she crept to Miss Starke’s side while Leonard rose and bowed. “I am very grateful to you, madam,” said he, with the grace that...

The baron’s style of living was of that character especially affected both by the most acknowledged exquisites of that day, and, it must be owned, also, by the most egregious pa...

And so Leonard stood beside his friend’s mortal clay, and watched, in the ineffable smile of death, the last gleam which the soul had left there; and so, after a time, he crept...

On Randal’s return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the Government at the approaching session of p...

DEAR SIR,--To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and...

Spring had come again; and one beautiful May day, Leonard Fairfield sat beside the little fountain which he had now actually constructed in the garden. The butterflies were hove...

As Violante thus sat, a stranger, passing stealthily through the trees, stood between herself and the evening sun. She saw him not. He paused a moment, and then spoke low, in he...

The next morning Harley appeared at breakfast. He was in gay spirits, and conversed more freely with Violante than he had yet done. He seemed to amuse himself by attacking all s...

The parson put on the shovel-hat, which--conjoined with other details in his dress peculiarly clerical, and already, even then, beginning to be out of fashion with Churchmen--ha...

But parliament had met. Events that belong to history had contributed yet more to weaken the administration. Randal Leslie’s interest became absorbed in politics, for the stake...

Some days after this memorable soiree, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his study (which opened pleasantly on an old-fashioned garden), absorbed in the house bills. For Colonel Pomp...

“But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party; surely they are worth your study, phi...

As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon Randal Leslie, who was hurrying from Eaton Square, having not only accompanied Mr. Avenel in his walk, but gone home with him, an...

The next day Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield. At first he found some difficulty in getting over her pride, and inducing her to accept overtures from parents...

With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L’Estrange bent his way towards Egerton’s house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had just entered one of the streets l...

“So, then,” said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, “poor Jane, who was always the drudge of the family, has contrived to bring up her son well; and the boy is really what you say, eh,-...

Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great friends. With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and weeds,--and how proud too was she...

Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called “reasoning by illustration.” Amongst other...

A propos of the inexpressibles, Mr. Richard did not forget to provide his nephew with a much larger wardrobe than could have been thrust into Dr. Riccabocca’s knapsack. There wa...

Randal arrived at the ambassador’s before the count, and contrived to mix with the young noblemen attached to the embassy, and to whom he was known. Standing among these was a y...

Early the next morning, while Violante was still in her room, a letter addressed to her came by the post. The direction was in a strange hand. She opened it, and read, in Italia...

Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singularly...

The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sat down on the stocks. All the female heads in the neighbouring cottages peer...

Baron Levy did not execute his threat of calling on Egerton the next morning. Perhaps he shrank from again meeting the flash of those indignant eyes. And indeed Egerton was too...

Leonard went out the next day with his precious manuscripts. He had read sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal London publishers; and to these he to...

It was past midnight when Audley Egerton summoned Randal. The statesman was then alone, seated before his great desk, with its manifold compartments, and engaged on the task of...

Of the narrative just placed before the reader, it is clear that Leonard could gather only desultory fragments. He could but see that his ill-fated mother had been united to a m...

Early the next morning Randal received two notes, one from Frank, written in great agitation, begging Randal to see and propitiate his father, whom he feared he had grievously o...

The Great Day arrived at last; and Mr. Richard Avenel, from his dressing-room window, looked on the scene below as Hannibal or Napoleon looked from the Alps on Italy. It was a s...

Peschiera had not been so inactive as he had appeared to Harley and the reader. On the contrary, he had prepared the way for his ultimate design, with all the craft and the unsc...

“My name is Morgan,” said the homoeopathist; “I am a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him.”

Violante was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of year. The orange-trees had been rem...

When a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With more than his usual alertness, Rand...

And with Burley there reeled in another man,--a friend of his, a man who had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had literary tastes, and was fond of...

Some days have passed by. Leonard and Beatrice di Negra have already made friends. Harley is satisfied with his young friend’s report. He himself has been actively occupied. He...

Harley had made one notable oversight in that appeal to Beatrice’s better and gentler nature, which he entrusted to the advocacy of Leonard,--a scheme in itself very characteris...

Lord L’Estrange parted company with Mr. Digby at the entrance of Oxford Street. The father and child there took a cabriolet. Mr. Digby directed the driver to go down the Edgware...

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like most country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up from his rake, with lively blue eyes be...

On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them, Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay at a little distance from the tow...

“It is your grandson, Leonard Fairfield,” said Mrs. Avenel. But John, who had risen with knocking knees, gazed hard at Leonard, and then fell on his breast, sobbing aloud, “Nora...

It was about a year after Leonard’s discovery of the family manuscripts that Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad-mare in the squire’s stables, and set out on an equestrian exc...

“Squire,” replied the parson, “although that is a melancholy conclusion, yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the Dales in particular; it is not one...

“And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can’t wonder,--it is a very handsome pair of stocks,” continued the squire, with a loving look at the object of...

The Room! And the smoke-reek, and the gas glare of it! The whitewash of the walls, and the prints thereon of the actors in their mime-robes, and stage postures,--actors as far b...

Suddenly one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a fashionable cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped at the door. A loud knock, a quick step on the stairs, and Randal...

She had on a cotton gown,--very neat, I dare say, for an under-housemaid; and such thick shoes! She had on a little black straw bonnet; and a kerchief, that might have cost tenp...

Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner,--dined in his quiet corner at his favourite club. Nero, not admitted into the club, patiently waited for him outsid...

It was, as we have seen, without taking counsel of the faithful Jemima that the sage recluse of Norwood had yielded to his own fears and Randal’s subtle suggestions, in the conc...

A sweet sound came through the orange boughs, and floated to the ears of the parson, as he wound slowly up the gentle ascent,--so sweet, so silvery, he paused in delight--unawar...

Meanwhile Audley Egerton’s carriage had deposited him at the door of Lord Lansmere’s house, at Knightsbridge. He asked for the countess, and was shown into the drawing-room, whi...

The dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, entre nous, reader)--but let it go no further,--we have a good many dogs among the fraternity that are not Munitos might have seen...

Dr. Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was st...

Leonard did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that day. Needless it is to say where he wandered, what he suffered, what thought, what felt. All within was storm. Late at ni...

“I have just been at our friend Levy’s,” said Randal, when he and Dick were outside the street door. “He, like you, is full of politics; pleasant man,--for the business he is sa...

It was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already, to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The p...

Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny Fairfield, whom the donkey had de...

On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of their school-days than to the politene...

On entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the peculiar charm which the severe Audley Egerton had been ever reputed to possess with women would have sensibly struck one wh...

Shortly after this discourse of Riccabocca’s, an incident occurred to Leonard that served to carry his mind into new directions. One evening, when his mother was out, he was at...

MRS. DALE (absent and distraite).--“The squire--yes, very true--quite proper.” (Then, looking up, and with naivete) “Can you believe me? I never thought of the squire. And he is...

And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw...

There appeared in the “Beehive” certain very truculent political papers,--papers very like the tracts in the tinker’s bag. Leonard did not heed them much, but they made far more...

“To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment,” replied the urbane Italian, as he recovered from his first surprise at Randal’s sudden address,...

Mr. Prickett was a believer in homeeopathy, and declared, to the indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been cured of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan....

“Mr. Leslie,” said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, “you did not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected with politics in the presence of a t...

Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast-bell, and on the staircase met Mrs. Haaeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to him to fo...

“Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy.” Jackeymo raised his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and the morning breeze swept by and bore to him the odour of...

Randal passed a sleepless night; but, indeed, he was one of those persons who neither need, nor are accustomed to, much sleep. However, towards morning, when dreams are said to...

He rose with an effort, and folding his arms tightly across his breast, paced slowly to and fro the large, mournful, solitary room. Gradually his countenance assumed its usual c...

As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain stateliness of manner and bearing, wh...

The maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table under the awning, and with the English luxury of tea, there were other drinks as cheap and as grateful on sum...

Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen. She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children at play....

Leonard was shown into the drawing-room, and it so chanced that Helen was there alone. The girl’s soft face was sadly changed, even since Leonard had seen it last; for the grief...

Yet Dr. Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants his wedding-garment to fit him must allow plenty of time for the measure. But from that day, the Italian notably changed his m...

At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded thoroughfares,--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits. But the last two days, since the discovery of his...

Violante’s first evening at the Lansmeres had passed more happily to her than the first evening under the same roof had done to Helen. True that she missed her father much, Jemi...

But not on the threatened question was that eventful campaign of Party decided. The Government fell less in battle than skirmish. It was one fatal Monday--a dull question of fin...

It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sudden approach of Lord L’Estrange, had little time for further words to the young Italian, than those which expressed his int...

Harley went straight to Peschiera’s hotel. He was told that the count had walked out with Mr. Frank Hazeldean and some other gentlemen who had breakfasted with him. He had left...

No sooner had Lady Lansmere found herself alone with Riccabocca and Harley than she laid her hand on the exile’s arm, and, addressing him by a title she had not before given him...

Mr. Dale had been more than a quarter of an hour conversing with Mrs. Avenel, and had seemingly made little progress in the object of his diplomatic mission, for now, slowly dra...

It is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery produced on Leonard’s train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble race had, then, preceded him in his str...

Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as thin as in boyhood, and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils; but the expression of his face was at once m...

One day three persons were standing before an old bookstall in a passage leading from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road. Two were gentlemen; the third, of the class and ap...

Richard Avenel was in a state of great nervous excitement. He proposed to give an entertainment of a kind wholly new to the experience of Screwstown. Mrs. M’Catchley had describ...

That evening Harley L’Estrange arrived at his father’s house. The few years that had passed since we saw him last had made no perceptible change in his appearance. He still pres...

Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been three or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him that excited all her fears. He seemed,...

Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took his way towards the still green haunts of his...

It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred equanimity that the Italian received the information that he need apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the...

Mrs. Fairfield was a proud woman when she received Mrs. Riccabocca and Violante in her grand house; for a grand house to her was that cottage to which her boy Lenny had brought...

She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy. Now behold them seated in the arbour,--a perfect bower of sweets and blossoms; the wilderness of roof-tops and spires...

Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with which he was treated. Riccabocca, who val...

Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all th...

Leonard walked sturdily on in the high road to the Great City. The day was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the distance; and with each mile that he...

Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst of all civil strife,--war with their servants. She looked upon the members of that class as the unrelentin...

“A thousand pardons!” replied Dr. Riccabocca, with all the urbanity of an Italian; “but it seems to me that if you had given the sixpence to the fanciullo, that is, to this good...

The parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he went souse upon the astounded Ric...

Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to find a notable alteration in one’s friend, even if he or she have been only wedded a week. In the instanc...

“I, too,” said he, “meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later. You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why this?”--for Helen was kneeling at h...

That same evening Randal heard from Levy (at whose house he stayed late) of that self-introduction to Violante which (thanks to his skeleton key) Peschiera had contrived to effe...

If, in the simplicity of his heart and the crudity of his experience, Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable that Mr. Stirn would address to him some words in approbation of...

The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of each refrain down came the staff on t...

Randal’s mind was made up. All he had learned in regard to Levy had confirmed his resolves or dissipated his scruples. He had started from the improbability that Pesehiera would...

At noon that same day the young man and the child were on their road to London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen to so young a companion; but Leonard, i...

The tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard at the altered person of his old acquaintance, and extended his sable fingers, as if inclined to convince himself by the s...

The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle, with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by, indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott...

“Ill-luck is a betise,” said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and in the long run, I fear, his Eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxfo...

Punctually at eight o’clock that evening, Baron Levy welcomed the new ally he had secured. The pair dined en tete a tete, discussing general matters till the servants left them...

“Four, o’clock,” cried the parson, looking at his watch; “half an hour after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual, because of the fine trout the squi...

The last words of Peschiera were still ringing in Violante’s ears when Harley appeared in sight, and the sound of his voice dispelled the vague and dreamy stupor which had crept...

Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining; for his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when his touch was on the handle, he drew...

The chiefs of the Blue party went in state from Lansmere Park; the two candidates in open carriages, each attended with his proposer and seconder. Other carriages were devoted t...

Aid me, O ye Nine! whom the incomparable Persius satirized his contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a sudden, invoked on his own behalf,--aid me to describe that famous...

While the parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to regale the reader with a small treatise a propos of that “Charles dear,” murmured by Mrs. Dale,--a treat...

“Excuse me, my dear Harley, I have only ten minutes to give you. I expect one of the royal dukes, and punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courte...

“A sad wild dog; his parents were so glad when he cut and run,--went off to the States. They say he made money; but, if so, he neglected his relations shamefully.”

Then they went into a public-house by the wayside. Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these implements before Leonard, said, “Write what...

It was a fortunate thing that the dejeune dansant so absorbed Mr. Richard Avenel’s thoughts that even the conflagration of his rick could not scare away the graceful and poetic...

Certainly it is a glorious fever,--that desire To Know! And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would ba...

The coach stopped at eleven o’clock to allow the passengers to sup. The homoeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous lungs w...

Once then, grappling manfully with the task he had undertaken, and constraining himself to look on what Riccabocca would have called “the southern side of things,” whatever ther...

“Listen to me, my dear mother,” said Leonard the next morning, as, with knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked along the high road; “I do assure you f...

Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale’s dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard Fairfield,--a...

Dr. Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was therein, entered to lay down a book which the...

“Stop; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce you to Levy; you had met him before at Borrowell’s, if I recollect right, and he dined with us at the Clarendon,--that is...

This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it being Sunday, it is presumed that the donkey was enjoying his Sabbath on the common. The tinker was in his Sunday’s best, cle...

Harley L’Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic and poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to learn the ties between these two Chil...

Mrs. Leslie came up in fidget and in fuss; she leaned over Randal’s shoulder and read the card. Written in pen and ink, with an attempt at imitation of printed Roman character,...

There was one person in the establishment of Dr. Riccabocca who was satisfied neither with the marriage of his master nor the arrival of Violante,--and that was our friend Lenny...

“I like the young man very well,” said the sage,--“very well indeed. I find him just what I expected, from my general knowledge of human nature; for as love ordinarily goes with...

Unaffectedly I say it--upon the honour of a gentleman, and the reputation of an author,--unaffectedly I say it, no words of mine can do justice to the sensations experienced by...

Violante and Jemima were both greatly surprised, as the reader may suppose, when they heard, on their return, the arrangements already made for the former. The countess insisted...

Leonard had been about six weeks with his uncle, and those weeks were well spent. Mr. Richard had taken him to his counting-house, and initiated him into business and the myster...

There was to be a considerable book-sale at a country house one day’s journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant to have attended it on his own behalf, and that of several gentleme...

“Very good in you to come to town to see me,--very good in you, cousin, and in you, too, Mr. Dale. How very well you are both looking! I’m a sad wreck. You might count every bon...

Just at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. Stirn! For, in fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped that he should have found the young...

Unconscious of the change in his fate which the diplomacy of the parson sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was enjoying the first virgin sweetness of fame; for the principal to...

Well, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown that thou hast in thee the iron out of which true manhood is forged and shaped. Thou hast the power to resist. Forth, unebr...

Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen’s return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant (which t...

Mr. and Mrs. Avenel sat within the parlour, Mr. Richard stood on the hearthrug, whistling “Yankee Doodle.” “The parson writes word that the lad will come to-day,” said Richard,...

Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and once to Mr. Dale; and the poor proud boy could not bear to betray his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerfu...

Look at her now, as released from those kindly arms, she stands, still clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to Riccabocca, with those large dark ey...

Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, wherein so mainly consists the civilization of our modern world, there is not one which is so carefully weighed, so accu...

The servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocc...

It will often happen that what ought to turn the human mind from some peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect. One would think that the perusal in the newspaper of some c...

At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick, oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on the sight? It stole on them through...

Leonard entered on the scene, and joined the party in the garden. The countess, perhaps to please her son, was more than civil,--she was markedly kind to him. She noticed him mo...

But the squire and his son, Frank, were large-hearted generous creatures in the article of apology, as in all things less skimpingly dealt out. And seeing that Leonard Fairfield...

The villanous “Beehive”! Bread was worked out of it, certainly; but fame, but hope for the future,--certainly not. Milton’s Paradise Lost would have perished without a sound had...

When the rest of the household were in deep sleep, Randal stood long at his open window, looking over the dreary, comfortless scene,--the moon gleaming from skies half-autumnal,...

Before he went the doctor wrote a line to “Mr. Prickett, Bookseller, Holborn,” and told Leonard to take it the next morning, as addressed. “I will call on Prickett myself tonigh...

Randal Leslie had a very long walk home; he was bruised and sore from head to foot, and his mind was still more sore and more bruised than his body. But if Randal Leslie had res...

As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could Leonard find: the humourist had ceased to communicate with the “Beehive.” But Leonard grieved for Burley’s sake; and, indeed,...

He expected that his master would start up in his customary indignation at such a suggestion,--nay, he might not have been sorry so to have changed the current of feeling; but t...

“For all that,” said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile in the eye and a pout of the lip, “I don’t remember that Pisistratus, in the days when he wished to be mos...