One Of Them

On a sea like glass, and with a faint moonlight streaking the calm water, the “Vivid,” her Majesty's mail-packet, steamed away for Ostend. There were very few passengers aboard,...

There was something actually artistic in the choice old Holmes had made for his daughter's residence near Bregenz. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse, with a deep eave, and a mas...

Although time has not advanced, nor any change of season occurred to tinge the landscape with colder hues, we are obliged to ask our reader's company to a scene as unlike the su...

Let us now return to some of the actors in our drama who for a while back have been playing out their parts behind the scenes. The Heathcote family, consisting of Sir William an...

After a great deal of discussion it was agreed between Layton and the Colonel that they should meet that day month at St. Louis. Layton was to employ the interval in seeing as m...

Who owns the smart tandem that trips along so flippantly over the slightly frosted road from the Bagni towards Lucca? What genius, cunning in horseflesh, put that spicy pair tog...

Our reader has been told how Mrs. Penthony Morris stormed the Villa Caprini, established herself, child, maid, and Skye terrier within its walls, and became, ere many days went...

SIR William Heathcote in his dressing-room, wrapped up with rugs, and his foot on a stool, looked as little like a bridegroom as need be. He was suffering severely from gout, an...

It was a sorrowful morning at the Villa Caprini on the 22d of November. Agincourt had come to take his last farewell of his kind friends, half heart-broken that he was not permi...

These are men who have specialities for giving admirable “little dinners,” and little dinners are unquestionably the _ne plus ultra_ of social enjoyment. To accomplish these the...

Mrs. Morris gave directions that when a gentleman should call to inquire for her he should be at once introduced, a brief note from Mr. Trover having apprised her that Mr. Stocm...

There was a small closet-like room in Layton's cottage which he had fitted up, as well as his very narrow means permitted, as a laboratory. Everything in it was, of course, of t...

It was late on that same night,--very late. The villa was all quiet and noiseless as Mrs. Morris sat at her writing-table, engaged in a very long letter. The epistle does not in...

“Here's another note for you, Stocmar,” said Paten, half peevishly, as they both sat at breakfast at the Hôtel d'Italie, and the waiter entered with a letter. “That's the third...

About half-way between Rome and Albano, and something more than a mile off the high-road, there stands on a little swell of the Çampagna a ruined villa, inhabited by a humble fa...

It is amongst the prerogatives of an author to inform his reader of many things which go on “behind the scenes” of life. Let me, therefore, ask your company, for a brief space,...

That twilight of the year called spring, most delightful of all seasons, is scarcely known in Italy. Winter dies languidly away, and summer bursts forth at once, and in a few da...

Mr. O'Shea had a very happy knack at billiards. It was an accomplishment which had stood him more in stead in life than even his eloquence in the House, his plausibility in the...

Old Layton never questioned his son whither they were going, or for what, till the third day of their journeying together. Such, indeed, was the preoccupation of his mind, that...

It was a most appetizing little dinner that was now set before the O'Shea and Charles Heathcote. The trout from Castellano and the mutton from Pistoja were each admirable; and a...

When the young Marquis had made his escape from sightseeing, and all its attendant inflictions, he was mainly bent on what he would himself have called being “very jolly,”--that...

“A letter,--a long letter from Alfred,” said Layton's wife, as she knocked at his door on the following morning. “It has been lying for four days at the office in Coleraine. Onl...

It was a severe night of early winter,--one of those stormy intervals in which Italy seems to assume all the rigors of some northern land, with an impetuosity derived from her o...

It was not without trepidation that Mr. Stocmar presented himself, the morning after the events we have recorded, at the residence of Sir William Heathcote. His situation was, i...

MR. O'Shea's man was not one to put his light under a bushel; so, when he received at the post-office a very portentous-looking letter, heavily sealed, and marked “On Her Majest...

Although Mr. O'Shea be not one of the most foreground figures in this piece, we are obliged to follow his fortunes for a brief space, and at a moment when our interests would mo...

They whose notions of a banker are formed on such home models as Overend and Gurney and Drummond, and the other princes o' that ilk, will be probably not a little shocked to lea...

When, on the following morning, Charles Heathcote repaired to the hotel where he had left his friend Lord Agincourt, he was surprised to hear the sound of voices and laughter as...

Every host has had some experience of the fact that there are guests of whom he takes leave at the drawing-room door, and others who require that he should accompany them to the...

A very brief chapter will suffice to record the doings of two of our characters, not destined to perform very foreground parts in the present drama. We mean Mr. O'Shea and Charl...

Mr. O'Shea lay in his bed at the Bagni di Lucca. It was late in the afternoon, and he had not yet risen, being one of those who deem, to travesty the poet,--

The little cottage at Port-na-Whapple, to which Alfred Layton had repaired to collect the last few relics of his poor mother, had so completely satisfied all his longings for qu...

The O'Shea returned to Rome at a “slapping pace.” He did his eight miles of heavy ground within forty minutes. But neither the speed nor the storm could turn his thoughts from t...

On the morning on which the great steamer glided within the tranquil waters of Long Island, Quackinboss appeared at Layton's berth, to announce the fact, as well as report progr...

Though Quackinboss understood thoroughly well that it devolved upon him to do the honors of his country to the “Britisher,” he felt that, in honest fairness, the stranger ought...

The household of the Palazzo Balbi was unusually busy and active. There was a coming and a parting guest. Sir William himself was far too much occupied by the thoughts of his so...

When Sir William Heathcote learned that Mrs. Morris had quitted his house, gone without one word of adieu, his mind reverted to all the bygone differences with his son, and to C...

“How good of you to drive over to this dreary spot,” began the Member, jauntily, “where the blue devils seem to have their especial home. I 'm hipped and bored here as I never w...

“I knew it,--I could have sworn to it,” cried Paten, as he listened to Stocmar's narrative of his drive with Mrs. Morris. “She has just done with _you_ as with fifty others. Of...

The Heathcotes had prolonged their stay at Marlia a full month beyond their first intention. It was now November, and yet they felt most unwilling to leave it. To be sure, it wa...

Moralists have often found a fruitful theme in the utter barrenness of all the appliances men employ for their pleasures. What failures follow them, what weariness, what satiety...

It was just as Alfred Layton stepped into the boat to row out to the “Asia,” bound for New York, that a letter from Clara was placed in his hands. He read it as they rowed along...

One of the most depressing and languid of all objects is the aspect of an Italian city in the full noon of a hot summer's day. The massive buildings, fortress-like and stern, wh...

When the key-note of some long-sought mystery has sounded, there is a strange fascination in going over and over the theme, now wondering why we had not been more struck by this...

It was a few days after the brief scene we have just recorded that the two Englishmen were seated, after sunset, on a little terraced plateau in front of an antiquated villa. As...

The breakfast at the Villa Caprini always seemed to recall more of English daily life and habit than any other event of the day. It was not only in the luxuriously spread table,...

“You would n't believe it,--no one would believe it,” said Mr. Heron, as he hastily broke in upon Layton the next morning, deep in preparations for the coming event “There 's ol...

At an early hour the next morning the two Laytons presented themselves at the private door of the “Regents.” Mr. Stocmar had returned that morning from Paris; he had been to bed...

Mrs. Morris, supposed to be confined to her room with a bad headache, was engaged in dressing for the masked ball, when a small twisted note was delivered to her by her maid.

Quackinboss and the Laytons came back in due time to England, and at once hastened to London. They had traced Winthrop and Trover at Liverpool, and heard of their having left fo...

Alfred Layton's day dragged drearily along, watching and waiting for the hour of departure. Close prisoner as he was, the time hung heavily on his hands, without a book or any s...

Having written a hurried letter to Quackinboss acquainting him with the causes which should prevent him from keeping his rendezvous at St. Louis, and informing him how he had me...

The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided against ill weather, he had take...

About the same hour of the same evening which we have just chronicled, a group of persons sat under some spreading chestnut-trees beside a brawling little rivulet at the Bagni d...

And there came a next morning to all this. Oh, these same next mornings of life!--strange leaves in that book of our daily existence, now dark and black-lettered, now bright in...

When Lord Agincoort returned to his hotel, he was astonished to see waiters passing in and out of his apartment with trays covered with dishes, decanters of wine, and plates of...

We scarcely thought that the distinguished public servant, Mr. Ogden, was likely to occupy once more any portion of our readers' attention; and yet it so fell out that this usef...

“I foretold all this,” said Charles Heathcote, peevishly, as a servant presented a number of visiting-cards with a polite request from the owners to be allowed to visit the vill...

While Agincourt and O'Shea thus sat and conversed together, there was another fireside which presented a far happier picture, and where old Sir William sat, with his son and May...

Were we at the outset instead of the close of our journey, we could not help dwelling on the scene the lecture-room presented as the discovery became whispered throughout the cr...

The following brief epistle from Mrs. Morris to her father will save the reader the tedious task of following the Heathcote family through an uneventful interval, and at the sam...

There is an Eastern tale--I forget exactly where or by whom told--of a certain poor man, who, being in extreme distress, and sorely puzzled as to how to eke out a livelihood, be...

Most valued reader, can you number amongst your life experiences that very suggestive one of revisiting some spot where you had once sojourned pleasantly, with scarcely any of t...