Nobody's Child

Coats Penniman had his work and Sue had hers. The old house was being transformed. Many years before, Ann, playing with a forbidden pen-knife, had cut through the half-dozen lay...

But Baird did not take his depression and his fears to Judith. When he was "down," he rode for miles into the country, often until late at night. He thought continuously of Ann....

When she saw who it was she hid herself. Crouched in the creek, she watched Baird's pause and close scrutiny of his surroundings. When he was about to dismount, she was frighten...

In the days, or rather, the evenings, that followed, Baird came and went by the cedar avenue. Though as frequent a caller at Westmore as ever, he appeared to have a penchant for...

Ann had reached the end of the woods now and stopped to compose herself. Her grandfather would not notice that she had been crying, but her Aunt Sue would. She would have to tel...

Edward had talked with a certain haste, and yet with pauses, quieting his brother while he sought for his own self-control. It was almost beyond him; he had paused, laid hold on...

Baird looked about the beautiful old room. How well he knew it! It was Judith's rightful setting; he was glad she possessed the place. The fact that she was a rich woman did not...

Ben looked at her, a glance that dropped away from the fire in her eyes. "It weren't the man you think. Coats Penniman's knowed nothin' of what's been goin' on. An' I don't know...

Ann received his kiss more shyly, turned her cheek to it. She had emerged a little from wretchedness, and the quality that invites pursuit, that draws passion and gives sparingl...

To one who did not know Coats Penniman, the words would sound cold, but Sue knew the meaning of the gray tint that had overspread his face, and the extent of the concentrated ra...

Baird never forgot that supper. They were gathered in the dining-room when he came down, composed, courteous, charming. It was a depleted company, five of the men were absent, a...

If she had fainted, it was a warm breathing unconsciousness like the sleep of exhaustion. And she had said she was not in pain.... As he listened to her regular breathing Baird...

Baird considered for a longer space, and then summed up thus: "From the very first Judith appealed to the best in me--she's appealed more to the mental than the physical side of...

Ann laughed; she knew it was no use to pretend. "You're so smart, Ben--you know what's in people's heads ... Aunt Sue told me. She's just heart-broken, an' I said I'd come an' b...

Baird would not have been Baird had he not added this codicil to his apology and signed it by the look he gave Ann, an appreciative study of the water-lily hat and the flower-li...

They were twenty-five in all, with the great mahogany table drawn crosswise of the room to allow passage between silver-laden sideboards and china-cupboards whose aged mahogany...

Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The...

"It's not so much Edward who likes him, is it?" the colonel blurted out. "The young man's pretty well smitten with you, if I'm any judge, and if I should see Elizabeth at your t...

There it was, her one great need, the thing upon which he must build. Baird kissed her breath away. "You sweet reluctant thing! Do you think I'd go away without you!" His voice...