Papa's own girl: A novel

* * * * I was seven years old when they came—those mysterious little red-faced sisters, which the day before were nowhere in the universe, and the next had sprung up before my b...

One beautiful May morning, not long after I first met Clara, I was sent to Dr. Forest’s with a basket of eggs. As I opened the little gate leading through the shrubbery and litt...

The doctor was about forty years old, but his hair was beginning to turn gray and his fine head was a little bald upon the top. He was about the medium height, muscular, with ha...

The doctor used to say that “Trust in Providence and keep your powder dry” was a good injunction, but would be better reversed; and whatever he believed, Clara subscribed to as...

Two years are passed, and nothing that very specially affects the doctor’s family has happened. The twins go to school, quarrel with each other, as sisters generally do, but the...

“Stonybrook College” would have been more appropriately, as well as more modestly, termed Stonybrook School at the time Clara entered it, for it was hardly more than a high-scho...

Oakdale some years ago was a very old-fashioned village, built around the traditional “common,” facing which were two taverns, one called the “Rising Sun,” several country store...

One night, some months before Clara’s final return from Stonybrook, the doctor returned home weary and “cross,” as he said. To the twins this used to mean that he was not in the...

Susie Dykes was a little woman even among the rather diminutive. She had pretty soft grey eyes, a slender, well-shaped waist, and a wealth of light yellow hair. The pretty and s...

The early days of September had come, and the day of Clara’s return. Dinah had scoured every pot and pan until they shone like mirrors, cooked the cakes and “lollypops” generall...

The next morning the doctor found Susie weak and feverish, and forbade her to leave her bed. He told her he had not been able to talk with Mrs. Forest, but should do so the comi...

“I will, papa,” replied Linnie; “and I will help nurse her too, for I think Susie is really nice.” Then there was silence again until Leila exclaimed, “Dear me! They say everybo...

Mrs. Forest had often had rather severe conflicts with her husband on questions of morality and justice, upon which, in her mind, he held very lax notions. This, however, was th...

Not long after Clara left her mother and Miss Marston, she rapped very softly on Susie’s door, not wishing to wake her if sleeping, and thus oblivious for the time, to her miser...

The twins, who were now about thirteen years of age, had great difficulty in fathoming the secret regarding Susie, for, being the youngest of the children, they were still babie...

As Mrs. Buzzell was watering her house plants, a few days after the visit of the doctor’s wife, a letter arrived for her, and her eyes brightened, seeing the doctor’s handwritin...

Dr. Delano winced a little at the scandals circulating in the village, for he heard the name of his betrothed constantly coupled with that of the “fallen” Susie Dykes. Once he e...

When Dan left his father’s house after his rejection by Miss Marston, he was really wretched for the first time in his life; yet the experience did not soften him as fine nature...

With October, came busy days for Clara. Her mother was in a fever from the fear that the wedding _trousseau_ would not be ready by the middle of November, when the wedding was t...

The effort Clara had made to do a great service for Susie, had failed dismally, and her mortification was intense, and for the first time she was a little disappointed with Susi...

Mrs. Forest was in her element preparing for the “show,” as the doctor called the marriage ceremonies; but Albert won her heart by agreeing with her in everything, orange-blosso...

It is early in Summer. Mrs. Buzzell and Susie, now her trusted and much-loved friend, are sitting on the little vine-shaded porch of her cottage—not really a cottage, for it is...

Dr. Delano, on taking his bride home, was somewhat surprised that Ella had left—accepted suddenly an invitation to spend the winter in Maryland, among some old friends of the fa...

The first cloud obscuring the heaven of Clara’s perfect happiness as a wife, had passed. The sun shone again, but never with its ineffable brightness. Love’s perfect Eden was fo...

A few days later, and when nearly all the preparations for the White Mountain trip were finished, Clara expressed a desire to run home to Oakdale for three or four days. It was...

“MY DEAR GIRL: I have just come from Mrs. Buzzell’s. It is about the happiest family I ever knew. The baby flourishes like a weed, and is as pretty a child as you would wish to...

During all this summer, so fraught with wretchedness for Clara, Susie was working with untiring energy, extending her arrangements for the future. As an experiment, she set out,...

There was great excitement for the rest of the day in the Kearsarge House, and when the evening coach brought Ella from the railroad station, she was surprised at the coldness w...

As soon as Clara recovered her strength somewhat, she visited Susie daily, and spent a great deal too much time with her, to please Mrs. Forest. One day she found her in her con...

The fragments of the golden bowl, to use Clara’s figure, could not be patched together, and at last Mrs. Forest gave up all hope, and took refuge in the consolations of religion...

Events which could not be foreseen, were destined to work great changes in the circumstances of several of our characters. One of these—the death of good Mrs. Buzzell—we will pa...

The next morning, after hearing Annie Gilder’s story, the doctor sent a written message to George Storrs, at his boarding-place. As it was Sunday, the young man was free, waited...

Another year has passed—a busy and prosperous year for the firm of “Dykes & Delano, Florists.” Miss Galway, the modiste, still continued to dispose of the small bouquets, and fo...

The doctor only stayed a short time, which was mostly employed in discussing the famous enterprise of the great French capitalist at Guise—the _Familistère_, or Social Palace. T...

On the way back to the village, the count left the doctor at the house of a patient, and then he went after Min, intending to take her to ride; but the time was all consumed in...

Miss Delano had persuaded Clara to defer her business in Boston until the next day, and spend the intervening hours with her. “Albert seldom dines at home,” she had said, “and h...

The next day was rainy, and the prospecting expedition, as Susie called it, was deferred; the count meanwhile employed the time in completing the purchase of a farm of sixty-fiv...

On a perfect morning in early May, the very day of the departure of the count and Madam Susie for France, a man prematurely old by dissipation, and destitute through wasting his...

During the spring and summer the work over the river went on so grandly and surely, that the most skeptical doubted no longer that the great enterprise would be accomplished. Br...

A year had passed since the count’s return from Guise, and still he and Clara had not spoken of that which filled them, and made the music and the poetry of their lives. To Clar...

One beautiful day in August, about a month after the events just narrated, Miss Charlotte came over to see Clara. She was looking quite radiant with some new happiness, and Clar...

The doctor, on his way home, saw a light in the printing-office, which was at the corner where he separated from his newly-made son-in-law; and at the latter’s suggestion a noti...

Nearly a year has passed, and it is summer again. Changes unheard of have been wrought over the river. The great palace dedicated to industry, rears its proud head toward the he...

“It is always cool here compared with other places,” replied Mrs. Müller. “Great buildings, you know, keep their own temperature very evenly all the year round; and then these w...

After the count’s speech, there was a quartette performed by pupils of the school, and a solo by Leila, Linnie playing the accompaniment. Her cold, correct soprano voice was hea...