Over Bemerton's

"Mr. Falconer," said Naomi to Mrs. Duckie, "wants quiet, clean rooms and the simplest cooking. Rarely anything but breakfast, and that very light. It must be in this neighbourho...

Queen Anne's Gate, where my stepsister and her family live, is, I think, save for the lack of sun, the most attractive street in London. My stepsister's house backing on the Par...

My first few days over Bemerton's were a dream of joy and liberty. I am happy enough still (my nature is happy), but in those first few days I was realising the desire of half a...

Mrs. Duckie has only one fault. Her virtues are many, chief among them an almost fervid cleanliness, displaying itself in the spotlessness of the rooms and an affection for fres...

I had not long been over Bemerton's when Mrs. Duckie knocked at the door to ask if Mr. Dabney, the gentleman upstairs, the gentleman on the press, might have a few words with me.

I took an early opportunity of visiting Mr. Bemerton and introducing myself: not a difficult task with the Chinese treasure as a lever, while the way had been, of course, furthe...

On Easter Monday I went with Alderley and Naomi to see Lionel play for a mixed team against Surrey. It was the first match of the year and bitterly cold, but to watch real crick...

It was not so easy to run down to Esher to see Miss Gold. Cowardice intervened. It requires not a little courage for a naturally diffident and sympathetic person to renew a frie...

There is a most amusing article in this week's _Balance_ on the Scold and her place in mediæval life. The writer had seen a ducking-chair somewhere, and had been led by it to a...

To look up Trist was, I knew, both necessary and desirable, and yet I dreaded it too. Not quite as I had dreaded the visit to Esher, but as a duty to be put off. Why? For we had...

The older I grow, the less, I find, do I want to read about anything but human beings. (The proper study of matured mankind is certainly man.) But human beings as human beings a...

I was sitting in my room at half-past ten wondering whether I should go to the Oval or to Lord's when a brisk rap sounded at the door, it was flung open, and in burst a dazzling...

I was writing letters at about noon, when Mrs. Duckie entered to see if I would be so good as to speak to Miss Wagstaff for a moment. Down I went, and found that bitter mercanti...

One of the strangest phenomena in this life of ours, I often think, is the way in which one thing leads to another. We million mortals may live alone, each in his sea of life en...

To-day I carried out my promise of lunching at the Golden Horn and testing the quality not only of the house's famous saddle, but also of Mr. Duckie's skill as a waiter. He had...

The breakfast table, which is the Wynnes' Upper House, setting the seal, or otherwise, upon schemes that have been comparatively idly adumbrated at other times and in other plac...

"Riches," said Miss Gold, "are a great responsibility. I want to be altruistic, but I want to be sure--or as sure as possible--of the money going in the right way."

So ran the frenzied pencil note in Naomi's hand, on the fly-leaf of a new novel, which was brought to me one morning by the boot and knife boy at Queen Anne's Gate.

On a fine Sunday afternoon Naomi and I walked through three parks and Kensington Gardens to have tea with the Estabrooks. On Sunday they have a sit-down tea round the schoolroom...

"No," I said, "none of these. You couldn't really have guessed if you had gone on all night. The news is, that I am going to take you on the Continent for a month--as many of yo...

We went straight through, leaving Charing Cross by the 2.20 which has carried so many happy travellers away from London through the smiling valleys of Kent. Were I a poet, I wou...

John Aubrey, whose _Brief Lives_ Mr. Bemerton has sent me with a strong recommendation, and to whom I turned that night, is a man after my own heart. He had an eye for character...

I rather liked my own rooms once, but Miss Verity's have made me discontented. What is the secret of femininity? Can it be reduced to a word? Not by me. But a literary exquisite...

Mr. Bemerton again stood my very good friend, for he had sent up during the day a book which he thought would do something for my thirst for character; and indeed it did. It was...

Bonnie Birdie Twist, as her name may suggest, is in the profession too, a sprightly lady vocalist with a high kick and a wink of such calibre that it can carry with deadly effec...

Old Mrs. Wynne, who in spite of the failure of her own plans, persists in considering this match her own making, and who came all the way from Ludlow to attend the wedding, paid...

I need hardly say that I did not sleep more that night. I had two matters of the gravest importance to ponder upon: the shock to my complacency, and the state of my heart.