Oranges and lemons

If a bishop had asked Elsie Carston, “Do you really and truly believe that islands, in far-off seas, were made islands and peopled by black races, solely in order that your brot...

He put back the receiver—and was astonished at his emotion. The force of his feelings shocked him. He had imagined himself past caring for anything very much. His life was so ea...

Towards twelve o’clock Diana came in, unrepentant and delightful; she floated in, as it were, on a cloud of tulle, a veritable will-o’-the-wisp, a thing as light as gossamer, as...

“There is no reason a dance should not be given when you want Diana back—a dance in the country is very delightful, so long as it be sufficiently well done, and the right people...

Shan’t nodded; then she jumped up and down in her chair and did dangerous things with her spoon, and the porridge within the spoon, and the only-aunt-in-the-world had to tell he...

The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not found a widower, they had found a b...

Marcus stepped out into the fresh, cool air with a sigh of deepest thankfulness. Even the girl who trod the red-bricked path beside him he could forgive for daring to fall in lo...

“You gave too much for it,” said Marcus, refusing to be beaten, or to be made to say wrong was right—or to be touched by the thought of the foolish old lady who had been taken i...

“Dear old man,” said Marcus, and Diana was further amused. If Scotland could do this for one man—then Scotland forever, for all men. There was a lorry for the luggage—a car for...

“Just one moment,” said Marcus, jumping up; “I must ask some one something before we go any further.” And he went upstairs, two steps at a time, to Diana’s room, and found her d...

Mrs. Scott smiled. “It’s so nice not to have to know relations on the other side, isn’t it? Sometimes they expect to be kissed—oh, I mean, women expect women relations on the ot...

“Be quiet!” said Watkins; his ears, attuned to the elements, he said, were the first to hear an answering call. It was the hoot of a steamer—at that moment of all sounds most bl...

But to Ralph St. Jermyn his career mattered more than the name of any woman; it had become as a god to him. Whatever happened nothing must interfere with that. He owed it to him...

Diana affected surprise. Did Aunt Elsie mean that she minded what Uncle Marcus thought of her? “It wasn’t as if you wanted to marry him, darling?” she said, seeking to comfort her.

She said so many people had called her by her name: so few people called her by any one else’s. She mightn’t have answered to Caroline if he—whoever he was—had called her that....