Tales and Novels — Volume 10 Helen

“I am proud to tell you, that at the time I married we were so poor, that I was obliged to give up many of those luxuries to which I was entitled, and to which I had been so acc...

The London budget of news was now opened, and gone through by Lord Davenant, including quarrels in the cabinet and all that with fear of change perplexes politicians. But the fe...

“In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of hope and pleasure. It was to me the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field...

Lady Davenant looked relieved, the general satisfied, and Lady Cecilia consoled herself with the hope that, if she had done no good, she had not done any harm. This was a bad sl...

It was a delightful day, sun shining, not too hot, air balmy, birds singing, all nature gay; and the happy influence was quickly felt by the riding party. Unpleasant thoughts of...

It was late before they reached home, and Helen dressed as fast as possible, for the general’s punctual habits required that all should assemble in the drawing-room five minutes...

When they were within the last stage of London, the carriage suddenly stopped, and Helen, who was sitting far back, deep in her endless reverie, started forward--Cockburn was at...

Absent or present, the guardian influence of a superior friend is one of the greatest blessings on earth, and after Lady Davenant’s departure Helen was so full of all she had sa...

It was rather worse when the ladies were by themselves. Some of the party were personally strangers to Lady Davenant; all had heard of her sufficiently; most had formed a formid...

General Clarendon was sitting in the music-room, within the library, the door open, so that he could see Helen the moment she came in, and that moment he threw down his book as...

That knowing French minister, Louvois, whose power is said to have been maintained by his surpassing skill in collecting and spreading secret and swift intelligence, had in his...

“But all this time,” said Lady Davenant, “you have not told me whether you have any of you found out what changed Granville’s mind about this falconry scheme--why he so suddenly...

Since Lord Davenant’s arrival, Lady Davenant’s time was so much taken up with him, that Helen could not have many opportunities of conversing with her, and she was the more anxi...

Helen’s perfect happiness at Clarendon Park was not of long duration. People who have not been by nature blessed or cursed with nice feelings, or who have well rubbed off their...

Lord Davenant had purchased, at the sale of Dean Stanley’s pictures, several of those which had been the dean’s favourites, and which, independently of their positive merit, wer...

If “trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ,” and that they are no one since the time of Othello could ever doubt, it may be some con...

The party now at Clarendon Park consisted chiefly of young people. Among them were two cousins of Lady Cecilia’s, whom Helen had known at Cecilhurst before they went abroad, whi...

According to the general’s advice, Mrs. Pennant did not delay her journey, and Helen left London the next day with her and Miss Clarendon. The last bulletin of Mr. Churchill had...

Of the regatta, of the fineness of the weather, the beauty of the spectacle, and the dresses of the ladies, a full account appeared in the papers of the day, of which it would b...

On awaking in the morning, after some long-expected event has happened, we feel in doubt whether it has really occurred, or whether it is all a dream. Then comes the awful sense...

Helen instantly went to Cecilia’s room; Felicie was with her. Helen expected Lady Cecilia would dismiss her instantly; but mademoiselle was chattering. Helen had sometimes thoug...

Horace was not sure whether he was cut or not, but he had the presence of mind not to look hurt. He drew nearer to Lady Davenant, seated himself, and taking up a book as if he w...

We left Helen in the back drawing-room, the door bolted, and beginning to read her dreaded task. The paragraphs in the newspapers, we have seen, were sufficiently painful, but w...

“All is right!” cried Lady Cecilia. “O my dear mother, I am the happiest creature in the world, if you were not going away; could not you stay--a little, a very little longer--j...

That Fortune is not nice in her morality, that she frequently favours those who do not adhere to truth more than those who do, we have early had occasion to observe. But whether...

When Helen attempted to walk, she trembled so much that she could not move, and leaning against the tree under which she was standing, she remained fixed for some time almost wi...

No two people could be more unlike in their habits of mind than this guardian and ward. General Clarendon referred in all cases to old experience, and dreaded innovation; Beaucl...

THE first tidings of Beauclerc came in a letter from him to the general, written immediately after his arrival at Paris. But it was plain that it must have been written before L...

But there was still in Helen’s inmost soul one deceitful hope. She thought she had pulled it up by the roots many times, and the last time completely; but still a little fibre l...

“_Miladi a une migranie affreuse_ this morning,” said Felicie, addressing herself on the stairs to Rose. “_Mille amitiés de sa part_ to your young lady, Miss Rose, and _miladi_...

Helen slept no more this night. When alone in the stillness of the long hours, she went over and over again all that had passed, what Cecilia had said, what she had at first tho...

“Though quite unknown in the London world, this young lady cannot fail to excite some curiosity among our fashionables as the successful rival of one whom the greatest painter o...

Helen was just dressed, and had given her last orders to her bewildered maid, when she heard a knock at the door, and Mademoiselle Felicie’s voice. She could not at this instant...

“There is Helen in the lime-walk,” said Mrs. Collingwood to her husband, as she looked out of the window. The slight figure of a young person in deep mourning appeared between t...

One evening, Helen was looking over a beautiful scrap-book of Lady Cecilia’s. Beauclerc, who had stood by for some time, eyeing it in rather scornful silence, at length asked wh...

After setting down Lady Cecilia at her mother’s, the aunt and niece proceeded to the picture sale which Miss Clarendon was eager to attend, as she was in search of a pendant to...

It was expected by all who had witnessed his discomfiture and his parting push to the chair, that Mr. Churchill would be off early in the morning--such was his wont when he was...

“I must go back,” continued Lady Davenant, “quite to the dark ages, the time when I knew nothing of my daughter’s character but by the accidental lights which you afforded me. I...

Helen looked eagerly out of the carriage-window for the first view of Clarendon Park. It satisfied--it surpassed her expectations. It was a fine, aristocratic place:--ancestral...

“My dear Helen, there is an end of every thing!” cried Lady Cecilia, the next day, bursting into Helen’s room, and standing before her with an air of consternation. “What has br...

The overwrought state of Helen’s feelings was relieved by a walk with Beauclerc, not in the dressed part of the park, but in what was generally undiscovered country: a dingle, a...

Some people value their friends most for active service, some for passive kindness. Some are won by tender expressions, some convinced by solid proofs of regard; others of a yet...

There is no better test of the strength of affection than the ready turning of the mind to the little concerns of a friend, when preoccupied with important interests of our own....

Beyond measure was Churchill provoked to find Lady Davenant against him and on the same side as Granville Beauclerc--all unused to contradiction in his own society, where he had...

Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company. She gave Helen a _catalogue raisonné_ of all who were expected at Clarendon Park, some for a fashionable th...

The next day, as Helen was going across the hall, she saw the members of the last political conclave coming out of Lord Davenant’s room, each looking as if the pope had not been...

“Married! absolutely married!” exclaimed Helen: “I knew it was to be, but so soon I did not expect. Ambassador’s chapel--where did you say?--Paris? No, that must be a mistake, t...

instruments, and then the harmony of music, all as in a dream, or as at the theatre, when the thoughts are absent or the feelings preoccupied; and in this dreamy state she perfo...