Peter's Mother

Peter stood on his own front door steps, on the shady side of the house, in the fresh air of the early morning. The unnecessary eyeglass twinkled on his breast as he looked fort...

The new moon brightened above the rim of the opposite hill, and touched the river below with silver reflections. On the grass banks sloping away beneath the terrace gardens, she...

Lady Mary smiled upon them all. "On the contrary," she said, "I was offering, not a moment ago, to take Peter round and show him the improvements. We have been so much occupied...

"Come in," said Lady Mary's soft voice; and Peter entered and closed the door, and crossed to the oriel window, where she was sitting at her writing-table, before a pile of note...

"I never complain, Canon Birch," said Lady Belstone, resignedly; "but it is a great relief, as I cannot deny, to open my mind to you, who know so well what this place used to be...

Lady Tintern was pleased to leave Paddington by a much earlier train than could have been expected. She hired a fly, and a pair of broken-kneed horses, at Brawnton, and once mor...

It was divided from the outer vestibule on the western side of the building by a massive partition of dark oak, and it retained the solid beams and panelled walls of Elizabethan...

On a perfect summer afternoon in mid-July, Lady Mary sat in the terrace garden at Barracombe, before the open windows of the silent house, in the shade of the great ilex; someti...

John Crewys stood on the walk below the terrace, with Peter by his side, enjoying an after-breakfast smoke, and watching a party of sportsmen climbing up the bracken-clothed slo...

"I--I saw all the people," said Sarah, in a breathless, agitated way, "I heard the news, and I wasn't sure whether I ought to come to luncheon all the same or not; so I slipped...

There was a soft mist of heat; the long-delayed spring coming suddenly, after storms of cold rain and gales of wind had swept the Youle valley. Two days' powerful sunshine had e...

But he read it slowly twice, and folded it. He was really thunderstruck. Peter was accustomed to write polite platitudes to his parent, and had presumably not intended that his...

She looked round the banqueting hall. The wax candles shed a radiance upon their immediate surroundings, which accentuated the shadows of each unlighted corner. Bowls of roses,...

Sir Timothy sat before his writing-table, which was heaped with papers, directories, and maps; but he could no longer see to read or write. He made a stiff pretence of rising to...

John took his hat and stepped out once more upon the drive, and there met Dr. Blundell, who had left his dog-cart at the stables, and was walking up to the house.

"My dear Mary," said Sir Timothy, "will you never learn to be punctual? No; I will take it as it is. Poor Ash has enough to do, as Georgina truly says."

Lady Mary came down the oak staircase singing. The white draperies of her summer gown trailed softly on the wide steps, and in her hands she carried a quantity of roses. A black...

John looked at her, and found himself wishing that her soft, brown hair were not strained so tightly from her forehead, nor brushed so closely to her head; the fashion would hav...

Torrents of falling rain obscured the valley of the Youle. The grey clouds floated below the ridges of the hills, and wreathed the tree-tops. Against the dim purple of the dista...

Nearly a thousand feet above the fertile valley of the Youle, stretched a waste of moorland. Here all the trees were gnarled and dwarfed above the patches of rust-coloured brack...

From the terrace before his windows Sir Timothy could take a bird's-eye view of his own property, up the river and down the river; while he also had the felicity of beholding th...