Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Illustrated)

“A note has just been left for you, Sir, by the baker’s boy. He said he was passing the Hall, and they asked him to come round and leave it here.”

The year—what an eventful year it had been for me!—was drawing to a close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognise the old familiar objects, bound up with...

“And I’ll tell _oo_ a story,” said Bruno, beginning in a great hurry for fear of Sylvie getting the start of him: “once there were a Mouse—a little tiny Mouse—such a tiny little...

On the following day, Arthur and I reached the Hall in good time, as only a few of the guests—it was to be a party of eighteen—had as yet arrived; and these were talking with th...

The silence that ensued was broken by the voice of the musical young lady, who had seated herself near us, and was conversing with one of the newly-arrived guests. “Well!” she s...

During the next month or two my solitary town-life seemed, by contrast, unusually dull and tedious. I missed the pleasant friends I had left behind at Elveston—the genial interc...

“One thousand pounds per annuum Is not so bad a figure, come!” Cried Tottles. “And I tell you, flat, A man may marry well on that! To say ‘the Husband needs the Wife’ Is not the...

My landlady’s welcome had an extra heartiness about it: and though, with a rare delicacy of feeling, she made no direct allusion to the friend whose companionship had done so mu...

“Ask Mister Sir,” Bruno lazily replied, clasping his hands behind his curly head, and lying back on his fern-leaf, till it almost bent over with his weight. “This aren’t a comfa...

What subtle memory could there be, linked to these commonplace words, that caused such a flood of happy thoughts to fill my brain? I dismounted from the carriage in a state of j...

“None _whatever_!” she replied, with the joyous laugh of a child. “We _give_ people what they haven’t got: we _wish_ for something that is yet to come. For _me_, it’s all _here_...

“Bring him here!” the Emperor thundered once more. The Chancellor tottered down the hall—and in another minute the crowd divided, and the poor old Beggar was seen entering the B...

“In Science—in fact, in most things—it is usually best _to begin at the beginning_. In _some_ things, of course, it’s better to begin at the _other_ end. For instance, if you wa...

“He _gives_ liberally; but he has not the health or strength to do more. Lady Muriel does more in the way of school-teaching and cottage-visiting than she would like me to reveal.”

“I didn’t quite catch what you said!” were the next words that reached my ear, but certainly _not_ in the voice either of Sylvie or of Bruno, whom I could just see, through the...

“_Heaviness may endure for a night: but joy cometh in the morning._” The next day found me quite another being. Even the memories of my lost friend and companion were sunny as t...

The ten days glided swiftly away: and, the day before the great party was to take place, Arthur proposed that we should stroll down to the Hall, in time for afternoon-tea.

“And those dear children will like a bit of cake, _I’ll_ warrant!” said the farmer’s hospitable wife, when the business was concluded, as she opened her cupboard, and brought ou...

When the last lady had disappeared, and the Earl, taking his place at the head of the table, had issued the military order “Gentlemen! Close up the ranks, if you please!”, and w...

“So, when they got to the top of the hill, Bruno opened the hamper: and he took out the Bread, and the Apples, and the Milk: and they ate, and they drank. And when they’d finish...

He made for the door of the public-house, but the children intercepted him. Sylvie clung to one arm; while Bruno, on the opposite side, was pushing him with all his strength, wi...

“And _audible_ too, I suppose?” I said, as she took the jewel, that hung round her neck, and waved it over his head, and touched his eyes and lips with it.

By this time the appetites of the guests seemed to be nearly satisfied, and even _Bruno_ had the resolution to say, when the Professor offered him a fourth slice of plum-pudding...

“_Crabbed age and youth cannot live together!_” the old man cheerfully replied, with a most genial smile. “Now take a good look at me, my children! You would guess me to be an _...

_Our readers will have followed with painful interest, the accounts we have from time to time published of the terrible epidemic which has, during the last two months, carried o...