Odd made even

"Oh, shut up, Molly! Don't quote 'other girls.' I hate them all. I hate everybody at this present moment. I'm sick of them; I'm sick of town; I'm—yes, I think I'm sick of life a...

BETTY stood on a green lawn surrounded by a tangled belt of shrubs and trees. It was a fresh bright spring morning. Blackbirds and thrushes were lifting up their sweet voices in...

"How can you stay in this stuffy little room when it's so lovely out of doors? I have had a little adventure, and I must tell it to some one!"

IT was an exquisite evening. Mrs. Stuart lay on her couch by the open window. Molly was seated on a low chair, gazing out into the dusky garden. Her hands were idly clasped in h...

ABOUT a week later, Mr. Russell drove Mrs. Stuart and the two girls to the Red Manor to lunch. Betty was very quiet, and her old friend rallied her on her loss of spirits.

"'Twould take more nor that, miss, to tire me. And a tired body can soon be put right. If there were no worse ills in life than that, us would be happy!"

Each word of kindness, Come whence it may, is welcome to the poor. Her presence Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a prison. LONGFELLOW.

MR. RUSSELL and Gerald sat out a couple of hours later on the smoking-room verandah. Politics and county news had been discussed during dinner; but now, as dusky silence began t...

BETTY'S spirits were always variable, but never quite so much as they were in these days. One day she would puzzle and distract Molly by her sparkling mirth; the next she would...

MR. RUSSELL was as good as his word. He came round to the vicarage the next evening, and Betty's desire for work was discussed. Mrs. Stuart, as her daughter feared, would not he...

Experience, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand; Whence harmonies we cannot understand, Of God's will in His worlds, the strain unfolds In sad perplex...

"Now, girls, what are you doing? I am to take you for a constitutional in the Park—act nursemaid, in fact—your mother says so! What! Betty deep with ink and paper! Heaven forbid...

Thou art beyond the shadow; Why should we weep for thee, That thou from care and pain and death Art set for ever free? Well may we cease to sorrow; Or if we weep at all, Not for...

IT was a very quiet life at Holly Grange. Nesta naturally, in these first days of her widowhood, saw very few people, and did not go out. Mrs. Fairfax kept much to her own rooms...

"No, I haven't, not very much. You see, we began well, but we met a stupid man who spoiled it all. And he made Aunt Betty stupid, too, for she wouldn't play properly after."

All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity. SHAKESPEARE.

IT was two months later. Mr. Russell was dispensing afternoon tea to a few of his friends on his shady lawn. Nesta and her boy, Betty, Molly, and Frank Dormer were all there. It...

Ah! when the infinite burden of life descendeth upon us, Crushes to earth our hope, and under the earth, in the graveyard— Then it is good to pray unto God; for His sorrowing ch...

Two days passed without a word from Frank. Then came a letter for Nesta. She took it to her own room, and read it before she told Betty she had received it.

MOLLY'S wedding was the next event. It was a very quiet one, and she was married from Holly Grange. Betty went down for it. Nesta thought her looking thin and pale, and wanted h...

Yes, it was love, if thoughts of tenderness, Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And yet—oh, more than all!—untired by time....

Across the threshold led, And every tear kissed off as soon as shed, His house she enters, there to be a light; Shining within when all without is night, A guardian-angel o'er h...