Not Without Thorns

A foggy evening in early December. Fogs are quick to gather and slow to disperse in the heavily laden air surrounding an assemblage of tall chimneys; and the manufacturing town...

There was not much conversation between Captain Chancellor and his partner during the quadrille, for Miss Laurence seemed a little afraid of her own voice in so public a positio...

The short winter's day was already nearly over; though the fog had cleared off, and frost was evidently on the way, it was still dull and dreary. Eugenia Laurence sat on the rug...

The morning succeeding the day on which Captain Chancellor had seen Roma off for Brighton, found her comfortably seated at breakfast with her sister-in-law in the lodgings which...

"Sorry to keep you waiting--quite against my habit, I assure you. But trains, you see, are worse than time and tide--they not only wait for no one, they very often make people w...

It was late in the evening when Gerald Thurston at last found himself again at Wareborough. He had written to Frank to expect him by a certain train, or, failing that, not till...

The rain was over, the evening had turned out fine after all. Captain Chancellor drove away in his fly from Mr Laurence's door, but the Thurston brothers decided to walk.

I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost; I love waves and winds and storms, Everything almost Which is nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery.

It was late in the evening of the Tuesday succeeding the skating expedition to Ayclough when Captain Chancellor reached Winsley Grange, so late that the only person awake to rec...

"Come, Addie, my dear, let me see you at the piano," said her father, laying his hand caressingly on the girl's fair head. "Not that it is quite my place to propose it, by-the-b...

It was the day of the Winsley Hunt Ball. The Halswood Chancellors' stay had already considerably exceeded the week originally proposed as its extent; but Gertrude had persuaded...

Roma's spirits rose considerably after her conversation with her sister-in-law. She did not look forward with much anticipation of enjoyment to the evening's amusement--balls at...

These three weeks had passed drearily enough at Wareborough. Not with everybody, of course. Frank Thurston for one was in a far from unhappy state of mind--his marriage with Syd...

Things, however, did not turn out quite so badly as several people anticipated. Eugenia's illness did not result in brain fever, though for a week or two it was serious enough t...

Who knows, indeed! Gerald left Nunswell on Monday morning, and for the rest of that day Eugenia's thoughts were principally occupied in reflecting over all he had said, and wish...

Captain Chancellor was standing by the window when Mrs Dalrymple entered the room. As the sound of the door opening caught his ear, he turned sharply round with a look of eager...

"How little we imagined what was to be the end of my visit to Nunswell! Do you remember how dreadfully unwilling I was to go?" she said to Sydney, when they were alone together...

Mrs Eyrecourt drove her brother to the station the next morning in Addie's pretty pony-carriage, which had been sent from Wylingham for the two or three weeks the Chancellors ha...

And the sunshine you recall-- Ah, my dear, but is it true? Did such sunshine ever fall Out of any sky so blue? Half I think you dreamed it all.

As Eugenia came downstairs the next morning, she met a small person toiling upward, one foot at a time. Eugenia loved children. She stopped at once and knelt down beside the lit...

Captain Chancellor had been away more than a fortnight. During that time Eugenia had received several short notes from him, most of which contained pretty much the same informat...

And sometimes I am hopeful as the spring, And up my fluttering heart is borne aloft, As high and gladsome as the lark at sunrise; And then, as though the fowler's shaft had pier...

Yes, things certainly looked brighter next morning, but the brightness was somewhat fitful and tremulous. Encouraged by it, nevertheless, Eugenia made many new resolutions--too...

Tuesday the 22nd came, but Captain Chancellor set off on his visit to Marshlands alone. Eugenia was ill--too ill to leave her room, though better than she had been. The restrain...

Time went on. November past, midwinter is soon at hand, and Christmas had come and gone before, contrary to the Chilworth doctor's sanguine opinion, Mrs Chancellor was at all li...

There was no letter the next morning. "Gerald must have been too late," thought Eugenia, trying to think she did not feel anxious. But the morning after that there was none eith...

The days were almost at their longest, but it was late enough to be nearly dark one evening, when a fly rattled along the street in Wareborough where the Thurstons lived, and dr...

It is dreary work--perhaps no one who has not had personal experience of it can imagine how dreary--to find oneself really alone in a strange place, with no customary daily duti...

"Oh, Roma, you must have asked him to come, your letter must have brought him," exclaimed Beauchamp's wife in great distress. "I know you meant it well, dear Roma, but you shoul...

Gerald Thurston did go to Halswood. Whether he did so knowing that there he would again meet Roma Eyrecourt is a secret that has never been divulged; whether in suggesting to he...

"The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand, Who saith `A whole I planed, Youth shows but half: see all, nor be afraid!'"