The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

“COME, Dora! I shall never be ready, if you don’t make haste. They will be here in ten minutes, and my hair is not half so nice as it ought to be, thanks to your carelessness.”

On rising next morning my first thought was that I must dress myself with more care than was usually the case with me before breakfast. Not that I was not always neat and tidy,...

My life seemed strangely quiet without Jerry for the next few days, and I longed all the more to console myself with Bobby and Teddy. But one gets used to the absence of anybody...

That night I went to bed hoping to the last that Belle would relent and say a kindly word to me. For after all, she was the only sister I had, and I would have been thankful to...

I had made all my arrangements as if I were really going to the Grange, and had had my boxes labeled accordingly. Thus Lady Elizabeth had not alarmed herself about me, knowing t...

But as soon as breakfast was over, I had a private confabulation with Mr. Garth, in which he fully approved of my intention of going to see Madame Kominski at once.

This change of name was the result of my deliberations while on my way here. It struck me as desirable, in Belle’s interests. In Belle’s! How strange it seemed that I should hav...

“Oh, Dora, dear! pray don’t! She would be so vexed. Look here. I’ll tell you all about it, if you’ll promise not to let mother know what is the matter with me.”

“I had,” continued madame, “father, mother, sister, and two brothers, all of whom were sacrificed to the Moloch of oppression: My father’s estates were confiscated, and his cast...

It struck me at the time as a remarkable coincidence that after walking about fifty yards we should come across a droschki, into which we all stepped, being driven away without...

“You have been gone a long time, my dear,” said madame. “I had begun to be quite anxious about you, and some one has been waiting for you who is becoming, oh! so impatient.”

I verily believe that for the space of half an hour I was beside myself. But so far from being violent under my emotions, I was stunned by them, and rendered temporarily incapab...

When I once more became conscious of my surroundings, I was seated in a chair, in the center of a large, low-ceiled apartment, of which the atmosphere was chill and damp and the...

“Look up, my darling, you are safe now,” were the next words of which my returning consciousness was cognizant. Opening my eyes, I saw those of Sergius bent anxiously upon me, a...

I was rested and refreshed by my long sleep, and was glad to find that the events of the night had had no ill effect upon my health. The room in which I found myself opened into...

It was all quite true. The czar had been assassinated. Though he was not killed outright by the bomb which was thrown under his carriage, it was known that he was mortally injur...

Never had such a brilliant company been assembled within the walls of Moorbye Church. It was Belle’s wedding-day, and the sun shone kindly upon the face of nature. Only a few fa...