The Athelings; or, the Three Gifts. Vol. 2/3

The Willows was a large low house, with no architectural pretensions, but bright as villa could be upon the sunniest side of the Thames. The lawn sloped to the river, and ended...

“Strange creature!” said Sir Langham Portland, who had joined the girls almost before they were aware; “Odd girl! If Lucifer had a sister, I should know where to find her; but a...

But Rachel did not join the party either in their drives, their walks, or their conversations. She was not to be seen during the whole day, either out of doors or in, and did no...

The next morning, and the next again, Agnes and Marian vainly sought the little bower of willows looking for Rachel. Once they saw her escape hastily out of the shrubbery as the...

When the first ice was broken, Rachel became perfectly confidential with her new friends--_perfectly_ confidential--far more so than they, accustomed to the domestic privateness...

That night, faithful to her purpose, Rachel did not appear in the drawing-room. How far her firmness would have supported her, had she been left to herself, it is impossible to...

For Agnes, we are grieved to confess, had fallen into all the sudden fervour of a most warm and enthusiastic girlish friendship. She forgot to watch over her sister, though Mrs...

To this most difficult question Agnes could not find any satisfactory answer. Marian, though so nearly concerned in it, gave her no assistance whatever. Marian went wandering ab...

But there was a wonderful difference between this high-minded and impetuous girl, as she crossed the lawn with a hasty foot, which almost scorned to sink into its velvet softnes...

And now it had come to an end--all the novelty, the splendour, and the excitement of this first visit--and Agnes and Marian were about to go home. They were very much pleased, a...

And now they were at home--the Fly dismissed, the trunks unfastened, and Agnes and Marian sitting with Mamma in the old parlour, as if they had never been away. Yes, they had be...

It came to be rather an exciting business to Agnes and Marian making their report of what had happened at the Willows--for it was difficult to distract Mamma’s attention from Si...

It stood upon the verge of a wood, and the side of a hill, looking down into what was not so much a valley as a low amphitheatre, watered by a maze of rivers, and centred in a f...

The upper floor of the Old Wood Lodge consisted of three rooms; one as large as the parlour down stairs, one smaller, and one, looking to the back, very small indeed. The little...

And with an excitement which they could not control, the two girls hastened in to the Old Lodge, and to Miss Bridget’s dim parlour, where the two candles shed their faint summer...

The next day the family walked forth in a body, to make acquaintance with the “new neighbourhood.” There was Papa and Mamma first of all, Mrs Atheling extremely well dressed, an...

Several weeks after this passed very quietly over the Old Wood Lodge and its new inhabitants. They saw “Mr Louis,” always a rapid and sudden apparition, pass now and then before...

September had begun, but my lord and his expected guests had not yet arrived at the Hall. Much talk and great preparations were reported in the village, and came in little rivul...

“But, mamma, if she was just on the eve of the same, why is she only Miss Rivers now?” asked Marian, very curious on this subject of betrothments and marriages.

“Yes, I only came to-day,” said Rachel, who kept her eyes wistfully upon Mrs Atheling, though she spoke to Agnes. “They made me go to town after you left, and then kept me _so_...

It may be supposed that, after all they had heard of him, the Athelings prepared themselves with a little excitement for the visit of Louis. Even Mrs Atheling, who disapproved o...

The next morning, while the mother and daughters were still in the full fervour of discussion about this same remarkable Louis, he himself was seen for the first time in the ear...

What Louis did or said, or how he made interest for himself in the tender heart of Mamma, no one very well knows; yet a certain fact it was, that from henceforward Mrs Atheling,...

This state of things continued for nearly a fortnight after the arrival of Lord Winterbourne and his party at the Hall. They saw Mrs Edgerley passing through the village, and in...

The visit of Miss Rivers was the most complimentary attention which she could show to her new friends, for her visits were few, and paid only to a very limited number of people,...

Marian, whom her mother tenderly put to sleep that night, as if she had been a child, yet who lay awake in the long cold hours before the dawn in a vague and indescribable emoti...

The end of it all was, of course--though Louis had an amount of trouble in the matter which that impetuous young gentleman had not counted upon--that Marian yielded to his prote...

The next day, somewhat to the consternation of this disturbed and troubled family, they were honoured by a most unlooked-for and solemn visit from the Rector. The Rector, in sta...

The next day was the day of Charlie’s arrival. His mother and sisters looked for him with anxiety, pleasure, and a little nervousness--much concerned about Papa’s opinion, and n...

“And now, Charlie, my dear boy, I quite calculate on your knowing about it, since you have been so long at the law,” said Mrs Atheling: “your father is so much taken up about ot...

Early on the next morning, accordingly, Charlie set out for Abingford. It was with difficulty he escaped a general superintendence of his toilette, and prevailed upon his mother...

When Charlie reached home again, very tired, and in a somewhat moody frame of mind, he found the room littered with various old boxes undergoing examination, and Agnes seated be...

Louis had not been told till this day of the peril which threatened the little inheritance of the Athelings. When he did hear of it, the young man gnashed his teeth with that im...

After a long and most laborious investigation of the old parchment, Charlie at last triumphantly made it out to be an old conveyance, to a remote ancestor, of this very little h...

The visit of Miss Rivers was an early one, some time before their mid-day dinner; and the day went on quietly after its usual fashion, and fell into the stillness of a sunny aft...