Norston's Rest

At the grand entrance of the park a young man had been waiting with a desperate determination to take some part in the hunt, though he was well aware that his presence in such c...

Ruth Jessup was almost happy, now. From a place of care and dread her father's sick-room had become a pleasant little haven of rest to her. Perfect confidence had returned betwe...

Yes, there she was, lighting up the bare hall with the rosy glow of her smiles, which, sullen as she strove to make them, beamed upon the visitor quite warmly enough to satisfy...

Young Storms was very restless after his midnight interview with Judith Hart, and became feverishly so when he discovered that the elder Storms had begun to move in his affairs...

Ruth did not come forth to receive her father. This was strange, for a trip to London, with these simple people, was a great event, and it seemed to Jessup as if he had been gon...

There was something secretly sinister in the man's voice that might have warned Judith of danger; but for his previous expressions of tenderness, she would have been on her guar...

"Norston's Rest" had its village lying within a mile of the park gate, mostly inhabited by the better sort of small tradespeople, with laborers' cottages scattered here and ther...

"Just me, and nobody else," answered the woman, quite indifferent to the frowns on that young face. "Hurried through my work early, and thought I'd just run over and see how you...

The good housekeeper, who sat in her comfortable parlor at "The Rest," was surprised and troubled by the sudden appearance of her pretty favorite from the gardener's cottage. Sh...

The park at "Norston's Rest" was divided by a swift stream that flowed into it from the distant uplands, separating the highly cultivated portions from the wilderness. Jessup's...

That night, long after the party at "Norston's Rest" had returned from the hunt, John Storms, a farmer on the estate, who stood at the door of his house chafing and annoyed by t...

Ruth held her breath and listened. She heard the door open, and footsteps in the little passage. Then her natural courage aroused itself, and lifting the posset-cup from the coa...

On the same night that Ruth had taken a desperate resolve to see her husband, Richard Storms was waiting in the lake house for the coming of Judith Hart, who had promised to mee...

Mrs. Hipple came into the room and found Lady Rose among her azure cushions, on which she had sunk with a deep sigh, and a blush of shame, at being so caught in the midst of her...

When Webb entered his master's room, after the young wife had fled from it, he found the patient in a high state of excitement. The flash of his eye, and the vivid color in his...

When Richard Storms entered his father's house that night it was with the air of a man who had some just cause of offence against the old people who had been so long waiting for...

While Ruth had thought her father resting from his dangerous exertions, that poor man had been aroused into keen wakefulness which brought back all his old powers of thought. Hi...

Lady Rose watched the master and servant as they went into the hall; then, gliding through one of the open windows, stole into the library, where she walked up and down, up and...

When Ruth left her father, he was overtaxed by the excitement of seeing his old friend, the housekeeper, and more than usually disturbed by the drift of her conversation. Kind o...

In the highest grounds of a park, almost an estate in itself, stood one of those noble old mansions that are so interwoven with the history of mother England, that their archite...

During the time that his mother was so kindly persuading Ruth to accept a home with her, Richard Storms was pacing the Lake House to and fro, like a caged animal waiting for its...

Ruth Jessup had no courage to attempt another interview with her bridegroom. Every morning she made an excuse to visit "The Rest" with fruit from her own garden, always accompan...

Just as the lights crept up to the front paling, and began to cast a glow on the flowers inside, Lady Rose stole out from the porch, threaded a lilac thicket, which lay near a b...

A week or two before these painful events happened at "Norston's Rest," Judith Hart had been expecting to see Storms day after day till disappointment kindled into fiery impatie...

Humble as Jessup's little dwelling was, there hovered about it a spirit of beauty which would have made even an uncouth object beautiful to an imaginative person. The very wild...

Had her sin killed that good old man? Was the penalty of what seemed but an evasion, death--death to the being she loved better than any other on earth save one, that one suffer...

Ruth Jessup was indeed more deeply pledged to Richard Storms than she was herself aware of. The old farmer and Jessup had been fast friends for years when these young people wer...

A figure crouched low in the darkness of that narrow passage, listening at the door, and shrinking with shudders when a groan broke through the ill-fitted panels. There was some...

Where could Ruth go? She had never been from home more than once or twice in her life. Her world was there lying about "The Rest"--her home in that cottage, where she was born,...

Thus persuasive in his speech and unusually affectionate in manner, Storms led the girl down the orchard path. Once under the old apple tree where their last stormy interview ha...

Sir Noel Hurst had been left standing in his library, white and stately, like a man turned into marble. That one hideous word had struck him with the force of a blow. In the sup...

It was a bright day at "Norston's Rest," when the young heir came from his sick-chamber, for the first time, and, leaning on Webb, entered the pretty little parlor in which Lady...

The servant retired, and Sir Noel began to walk up and down the room, rubbing his white hands in a gentle, caressing way, as if some joyous feeling found expression in the movem...

Ruth needed no recommendation to watch the beautiful little vehicle that flashed down the avenue, a perfect nest of bright colors, over which the sunlight shone with peculiar re...

Across one of the moonlit paths of the park lay the form of a man, with his face turned upward, white and still as the moonbeams that fell upon it. A little way farther on, wher...

When once in the garden, Mrs. Mason grew very serious, and stood some time in silence watching Ruth, who, bending low, was sweeping the green leaves from a host of plump berries...

the park on my way back from London that night. He was in a rage, and said something about you and my daughter Ruth that angered me in turn. In my wrath I knocked him down, and...

"No, Sir Noel, he only said it to me, and impudent enough in him to do it. His message to you was soft as silk. He had important business which you would like to hear of, and co...

Young Hurst was scarcely conscious that he was left alone. His feeble strength was taxed to the utmost. That one burst of indignant feeling had left his breath in thrall, and hi...

Storms returned home, triumphing in his success over that helpless girl, and confident that Sir Noel would accept his terms at last, haughtily as he had been dismissed from the...

Ruth Jessup hurried into the house, ran breathlessly to her chamber in the loft, and changed the coquettish dress, which gave such picturesque brightness to her beauty, for one...

The two girls stood up and listened. The footsteps came forward swiftly, and with a light touch of the ground; too light, Ruth felt, with a sinking heart, for the heavy tread of...

Ruth Jessup stood by her father's bed, white as a ghost, and cold as a stone. Her step, usually so light, had fallen heavily on the floor as she entered the room--so heavily tha...

The baronet might, however, have been surprised had he seen Walton Hurst pass the Lady Rose on the terrace, only lifting his hat in recognition of her presence as he hurried int...

"Coupled with my evidence, it is enough to hang any man in England," said Storms, reaching out his hand for the paper, which she returned to him in a dazed sort of dream.

The housekeeper was more than usually busy that day, but she greeted her favorite with affectionate warmth. "You there, my poppet," she said, seating herself for a talk. "I have...

At the station, which Richard Storms had designated, Judith Hart had been waiting while three or four trains went by. She did not travel much by railroads, and this was almost l...

"Norston's Rest" was brilliantly lighted, for a dinner-party had assembled, when its heir drove up in his dog-cart that night, and leaping out, threw his reins to the groom, wit...

Breathless and wildly happy, Ruth Jessup almost flew along the shaded path which led from "The Rest" to her own humble dwelling. Now and then she would look up to a bird singing...

The poor father, whom Judith Hart had so cruelly abandoned, sat alone in the old house, patient in his broken-heartedness and more poverty-stricken than ever. He had no neighbor...

"Norston's Rest" was now in a state of comparative quiet. The throng of visitors that had made the place so brilliant had departed, and, for the first time in months, Sir Noel c...

Jessup was lying with his eyes closed, and his mouth firmly compressed, as if in pain. But the tread of heavy feet on the floor aroused him, and he opened his eyes in languid wo...

"Well, now, have you come round to take a fling at me?" said the girl, with more of terror than anger in her voice. "If you have, I won't bear it, for you're the one most to bla...

As she waited there, with fire on her cheeks and longing in her eyes, the change that a few months had made was marvellous. Those eyes, at first boldly bright, were now like vel...

When Richard Storms left the gardener's cottage, he dashed like a wild beast into the densest thickets of the forest, and tore his way through toward his own home. It gave him a...

Sir Noel looked up from the volume he was reading, and saw Lady Rose standing before him, flushed, agitated, but with a glow of exaltation in her eyes that he had never seen the...

Up the crooked staircase the girl turned and shut herself into a little chamber, opposite that in which Jessup had suffered his days of pain--a dainty chamber, in which the wind...

Ruth went into the garden, which was lying in shadow just then; so she required no covering for her head, but rather enjoyed the bland south wind which drifted softly through he...

"My darling--my wife! Look up and tell me that your joy is equal to mine," said Hurst, when he and his bride were seated in the carriage. "No! that is impossible; but say that y...

"You don't believe me! You think to escape, or put me down with these fine-lady airs. Perhaps you mean to complain to the young man up yonder, and set him to worrying me again....

Breathless with apprehension, which was made half joy by an undeniable sense of happiness, all the more intense because it was gained by so much hazard, Ruth Jessup--for she dar...

William Jessup seemed to be getting better rapidly after those few words with Ruth, that had lifted a mountain of pain from his heart, pain deeper and keener than the biting ang...

"I have come to ask after your father," he said, with an anxious look, as if he expected some rebuff. "They say that he has been shot in the back by some lurking thief. Perhaps...

Among the persons who had come to the gardener's funeral old Mrs. Storms was most conspicuous, not only from her high position among the tenants, but because of the relations he...

Two persons, both anxious and unhappy, sat in the breakfast-room at "Norston's Rest," Sir Noel and Lady Rose. Sir Noel was thinking with secret uneasiness of the charge, that ha...

How, and by what way, that poor young creature came out on the verge of the Black Lake she could not have told. When she came down those balcony steps she had left the world beh...

Ruth stood alone under the shadow of the trees, white as a ghost, and rendered desperate by words that had smitten her into insensibility. How long she had lain in that forest p...

Ruth stood perfectly motionless, until the light tread of Lady Rose died out on the turf. Then she sat down and fell into thought, so deep and dreary, that it seemed like waking...

"Father, father, do not ask me to meet him; from the first it was an evil engagement, broken, or should have been. Why do you wish to take it up again?"

"Judith Hart, will ye just carry the ale-cans a little more on the balance? Can't ye mind that the foam is dripping like suds over yer hands, and wetting the sand on the floor t...

"What are you thinking of, Richard, with your eyes wandering out on the water and your mouth so set?" asked the girl, after some moments of silence that began to trouble her.

Ruth did sleep long and profoundly. A stone had been rolled from her heart, and the solemn rest of subsiding grief fell upon her. Early in the morning she arose and went down-st...

Judith Hart took her way straight for the wilderness. She passed along the margin of the black lake, made at once for the summer-house, and looked in, then turned away with an e...

Lady Rose had, indeed, left the house. She knew best where to search for the missing girl. In the hall she met Mrs. Hipple. Snatching a garden-hat, she held it toward the old go...

A funeral moved slowly from the gardener's house. Out through the porch, under the clustering vines he had planted, William Jessup was carried by his own neighbors, with more th...