Ombra

Mrs. Anderson was waiting in Kate’s room, when Maryanne, sympathetic, weeping, and delighted, introduced her carefully. ‘Oh, mayn’t I carry it, ma’am?’ she cried, longing; and w...

Mr. Courtenay was much too true to his instincts, however, to satisfy these two applicants, or to commit himself by any decision on the spot. He dismissed Miss Blank with the fo...

It will be seen, however, that, though Kate’s interpretation of the imperfections of ‘the boys’ was more genial than that of Ombra, yet that still there was a certain condescens...

It was thus that Kate evaded the further discussion of the question. She went off gaily bounding along the long passage. ‘Francesca, Francesca, where are my flowers?’ she cried....

It is a curious sensation to return, after a long interval, to the home of one’s youth, especially if one has had very great ideas of that home, and thought it magnificent. Even...

The little party travelled, as it is in the nature of the British tourist to travel, when he is fairly started, developing suddenly a perfect passion for sight-seeing, and for l...

Mr. Courtenay had stipulated that Kate was to be met by her aunt, not at his house, but at the railway, and to continue her journey at once. His house, he said, was shut up; but...

For the next few days everything was merry as marriage-bells; and though Kate felt even the fondness and double consideration with which she was treated when she was alone with...

Kate’s eighteenth birthday was in Easter-week; and on the day before that anniversary a letter arrived from her Uncle Courtenay, which filled the Cottage with agitation. During...

Kate Courtenay rushed across the park in a passion of mortification and childish despair, and fled as fast as her swift feet could carry her to a favourite spot--a little dell,...

Miss Courtenay, of Langton-Courtenay, had scarcely ever in her life been promoted before to the glories of a late dinner. She had received no visitors, and the house was still u...

It was a week later before Bertie came. He was brought to call by his mother and sisters in great delight and pomp; and then there ensued the strangest scene, of which only half...

Kate had a good deal to think of when she went home that evening, and shut herself up in the room which was full of the sweetness of Antonio’s violets. Francesca, with an Italia...

Kate thought she had never imagined anything so stately, so beautiful, so gay, so like a place for princes and princesses to meet, as the suite of rooms in the Palazzo occupied...

Katherine Courtenay was an only child, and a great heiress; and both her parents had died before she was able to form any clear idea of them. She was brought up in total ignoran...

From Pump Court, in the Temple, it is a long way to the banks of a little loch in Scotland, surrounded by hills, covered with heather, and populous with grouse--that is, of cour...

In the few weeks that followed it happened that Kate was thrown very much into the society of Lady Caryisfort. It would have been difficult to tell why; and not one of the party...

I cannot undertake to say how it was, but it is certain that Bertie Hardwick met Kate next day, as she took her walk into the village, accompanied by Miss Blank. At the sight of...

‘Why should you get up this morning, Signora _mia_?’ said old Francesca. ‘The young ladies are fast asleep still. And it was a grand success, _a che lo dite_. Did not I say so f...

Next morning, when Mr. Courtenay took his way from the hotel to the Lung-Arno, his eye was caught by the appearance of a young man who was walking exactly in front of him with a...

They were all very subdued when they met next day. It was now, perhaps, more than at any former time that Kate’s position told. Instinctively, without a word of it to each other...

Kate’s life seemed to stop at this point. For a few days she did not know what she did. She would have liked to give in, and be ill, but dared not, lest her aunt (who did not lo...

This incident passed as all incidents do, and the blank of common life returned. How short those moments of action are in existence, and how long are the dull intervals--those i...

Bertie Hardwick was on the lawn in front of the Rectory when the two visitors approached. The Rectory was a pretty, old-fashioned house, large and quaint, with old picturesque w...

Long after Kate’s little bedchamber had fallen into darkness, the light still twinkled in the windows of the Cottage drawing-room. The lamp was still alight at midnight, and Omb...

In the little bustle of preparation which ensued, there was, of course, a good deal of dressmaking to do, and Miss Richardson, the dressmaker from the village, who was Mr. Sugde...

It was about this time, about two months after their arrival in Florence, and when the bright and pleasant ‘family life’ we have been describing had gone on for about six weeks...

The reason of Kate’s strange paleness and agitation was afterwards explained to be the fact that she had suddenly heard, no one knew how, of the death of Mrs. Hardwick’s brother...

Ombra was a young woman, as we have said, full of fancy, but without any sympathetic imagination. She had made a picture to herself--as was inevitable--of what the lover would b...

‘It was you who knew them, Mr. Eldridge,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘Tell me about them--you can’t think how interested I am. She thinks Lady Granton neglected her duty, and she mea...

The two Berties came again next day--they came with their cousins, and they came without them. They joined the party from the Cottage in their walks, with an intuitive knowledge...

Kate rushed upstairs to her own room when she reached the Hall; she was wild with mortification and the sense of downfall. It was the first time she had come into collision with...

Kate settled down into her new life with an ease and facility which nobody had expected. She wrote to her uncle that she was perfectly happy; that she never could be sufficientl...

Kate took it upon herself to make unusual preparations for the supper on that particular evening. She decorated the table with her own hands, and coaxed Francesca to the purchas...

Yes, packing, without doubt, takes up a great deal of time, and that must have been the reason why Mrs. Anderson and Ombra were so much occupied. They had so many things to do....

The promise was made, and Ombra lay down in her little white bed, silent, no longer making a complaint. She turned her face to the wall, and begged her mother to leave her.

While all this agitation was going on over Kate’s fate on one side, it is not to be supposed that there was no excitement on the other. Her two relations, the mother and daughte...

With a malice sometimes shown by Providence, we have said; and we feel sure that we are but expressing what many a troubled housewife has felt, and blamed herself for feeling. I...

Before four-and-twenty hours had passed, a certain premonition of approaching change had stolen into the air at Langton-Courtenay. Miss Blank, too, had been received by Mr. Cour...

This strange little incident, which at the moment it was occurring seemed to be perfectly natural, but as soon as that moment was over became inexplicable, dropped into Kate’s l...

The scene which Mr. Courtenay saw when he walked in suddenly to Mrs. Anderson’s drawing-room, was one so different in every way from what he had expected, that he was for the fi...

It was summer when Kate arrived at the Cottage, and it was not till the Easter after that any disturbing influences came into the quiet scene. Easter was so late that year that...

Things went on in this way for some weeks, while the _Shadow_ lay in Sandown Bay, or cruised about the sunny sea. There was so much to do during this period, that none of the yo...

Kate’s existence, however, was too monotonous to be dwelt upon for ever, and though all that can be afforded to the reader is a glimpse of other scenes, yet there are one or two...

‘How could you be such an ass?’ he said. ‘You were just going to let out that the yacht was bound for the Mediterranean, and then, of course, their plans would have been instant...

Circumstances after this threw Mr. Sugden a great deal in their way. He lived in a superior sort of cottage in the village, a cottage which had once been the village doctor’s, a...

‘Signorina mia, when one is a Buoncompagni, one’s grandfather is very close and near,’ said Francesca. ‘There are some families in which a grandfather is a distant ancestor, or...

The next day the whole population of the place surged in and out of the Cottage, full of regrets and wonders. ‘Are you really going?’ the ladies said, ‘so soon? I suppose it was...

The fact was that Ombra, as she said, had not given her confidence to any one; she had betrayed herself to her mother in her first excitement, when she had lost command of herse...

It is hard to be oppressed with private anxiety and care in the midst of a great house full of people, who expect to be amused, and to have all their different wants attended to...

This was the reason why Kate heard no more from Mr. Sugden. He knew, and yet he did not know. That which had been told him was very different from what he had expected to hear....

That was the horrible sting of it--they had made believe to love her, and it had not been true. Now love, Kate reflected (as she went slowly to her room, feeling, somehow, as if...

Ombra, however, did not set her face against it. What difficulty the mother might have had with her, no one knew, and she appeared no more that day, having ‘a bad headache,’ tha...

‘Come and tell me all about yourself, Kate,’ said Lady Caryisfort, from her sofa. She had a cold, and was half an invalid. She had kept Kate with her while the others went out,...

Sunday was their last evening at Shanklin, and they were all rather melancholy--even Kate, who had been to church three times, and to the Sunday school, and over the almshouses,...

Mrs. Anderson awaited her daughter’s awakening next morning with an anxiety which was indescribable. She wondered even at the deep sleep into which Ombra fell after the agitatio...

Does this sort of thing happen often?’ said Mr. Courtenay, leading Kate away round the further side of the garden, much to the annoyance of the croquet players. The little kitch...

The success of this move had gone far beyond Mr. Courtenay’s highest hopes. He was unprepared for the suddenness of its acceptance. He went off and told Lady Caryisfort, with a...

Mrs. Anderson’s house was situated in one of those nests of warmth and verdure which are characteristic of the Isle of Wight. There was a white cliff behind, partially veiled wi...

Florence altogether was full of pleasant novelty to the young traveller. To find herself living up two pair of stairs, with windows overlooking the Arno, and at a little distanc...

All that Summer Mr. Sugden wandered about the world like a soul in pain. He went everywhere, unable to settle in one place. Some obliging friend had died, and left him a little...

Kate was so far a true prophet that the Berties did return, but not till Christmas, and then only for a few days. For the first time during the Autumn and early Winter, time hun...

We have said that Ombra’s attention was otherwise occupied. Had it not been so, it is probable that she would have resented and struggled against the new and unusual and humilia...

The news which had made so much commotion in the Hall came from the Rectory in a very simple way. Edith and Minnie had come up to call. Their mother rather wished them to do so...

Mr. Courtenay was in the library at Langton, tranquilly pursuing some part of the business which had brought him thither, when Miss Blank and her charge returned from their walk...

There was something that might almost have been called a quarrel downstairs that night over the new arrival. Ombra was cross, and her mother was displeased; but Mrs. Anderson ha...

There is nothing perfect in this world. If Bertie Hardwick had been like his cousin, a great county potentate, on the same level as Miss Courtenay of Langton-Courtenay, they wou...

That was a curious day--a day full of strange excitement and suppressed feeling--suppressed on all sides, yet betraying itself in some unexplainable way. Mrs. Anderson made no e...