Portia; Or, By Passions Rocked

THE gates are thrown wide open, and the carriage rolls smoothly down the long dark avenue, beneath the waving branches of the tall elms and the copper beeches, through which the...

The hour has flown, and Dulcinea, standing in the doorway of her cousin's room, gazes on her with undisguised admiration. To Dulcinea, anything lovely, be it man, or beast, or f...

THE boys, as Miss Blount--that is Dulce--irreverently terms them, are coming slowly across the grass, trampling the patient daisies. The sun has "dropped down" and the "day is d...

"'Tis not mine to forget. Yet can I not Remember what I would or what were well. Memory plays tyrant with me, by a wand I cannot master!" --G. MELLEN.

"I WISH you would _try_ to remember," says Dulce, a little hastily. She is sitting in a rather Gothic chair, and the day is ultra-hot, and the strain upon her mental powers is g...

"JULIA is coming to-day," says Dulce, looking at them all, with the tea-pot poised in her hand. It is evident that this sudden announcement has hitherto been forgotten. "I heard...

SLOWLY, decorously, they march into church, one by one--Dulce first, and then Sir Christopher, and then Julia Beaufort and Portia, and so on, down to the children, who are evide...

"None here are happy, but the very fool, Or very wise: I am not fool enough To smile in vanities, and hug a shadow; Nor have I wisdom to elaborate An artificial happiness from p...

"Young hearts, bright eyes, and rosy lips are there, And fairy steps, and light and laughing voices, Ringing like welcome music through the air-- A sound at which the untroubled...

WITH a continuous sob and a roar from the distant ocean the storm beats on. All night it has hurled itself upon path and lawn with impotent fury; towards morning it still rages,...

Portia, in the distance, bending over an easel; Julia is forming some miraculous flower, that never yet was seen by land or sea, on a coarse towel, with some crewel wools; the B...

"So we ought," says Dicky Browne, briskly. It seems the most natural thing in the world that he should use the first person plural, and that he should appear to be the chief pro...

TIME, as a rushing wind, slips by, and brings us Dulce's ball. The night is lovely and balmy as any evening in the Summer months gone by, though now September shakes the leaves...

The night wears on. By this time everybody is either pleased or disappointed with the evening. For the most part, of course, they looked pleased, because frowns are unbecoming;...

THE last guest has departed. Portia has wished "good-night" to a very sleepy Dulce, and has gone upstairs to her own room. In the corridor where she sleeps, Fabian sleeps too, a...

IT is two days later. Everyone you know is in the drawing-room at the Court--that is, everyone except Dulce. But presently the door opens, and that stormy young person enters, w...

IT is next day. There has been rain in the night--_heavy_ rain--and the earth looks soaked and brown and desolate. Great storms, too, had arisen, and scattered the unoffending l...

THE days have grown shorter and shorter. Daylight now is to be prized, not sported with, as in the gay and happy Summer. "The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" has carried u...

"We must live our lives, though the sun be set, Must meet in the masque, where parts we play, Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet; Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay: But wh...

"Shall I answer?" says Dulce to herself, half uncertainly; and then she hesitates, and then belies the old adage because she is not lost, but decides on maintaining a discreet s...

THEY return. The early Winter night has fallen, and in the smaller drawing-room the curtains are already drawn, and though no lamps are lit, a sweet, chattering, gossiping fire...

FROM Christmas Day to New Year's Day we all know is but a week--but _what_ a week it is! For my part I think this season of supposed jollity the most uncomfortable and forlorn o...

JEALOUSY is the keenest, the most selfish, the most poignant of all sufferings. "It is," says Milton, "the injured lover's hell." This monster having now seized upon Stephen, is...

It is the afternoon of the next day, and as the sun has come out in great force, and the mildness of the day almost resembles Spring in its earliest stages; they are all about t...

WHEN dinner comes Dulce is wonderfully silent. That is the misfortune of being a rather talkative person, when you want to be silent you can't, without attracting universal atte...

JUST at first it is so delightful to Dulce to have Roger making actual love to her, and so delightful to Roger to be able to make it, that they are content with their present an...

"BEFORE you begin, Fabian, it is only fair to tell you that I will not listen favorably to one word in his defense. Under the farsical term of secretary, Slyme has been a disgra...

THE night closes in, the rain has ceased, or only now and then declares itself in fitful bursts, but still the wind rages and the storm beats upon land and sea, as though half i...

IT all happened only yesterday, yet how long ago it seems already; and now the sun is shining again, bravely, cheerily, as though life is all made up of joy and gladness, and as...