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

Mrs Atheling and her son were in Charlie’s little room, with its one small lattice-window, overshadowed and embowered in leaves--its plain uncurtained bed, its small table, and...

That night Charlie had need of all his diplomatic talents. Before he returned from Oxford, his mother, by way of precaution lest Agnes should betray the sudden and mysterious vi...

Charlie Atheling was not at all of an imaginative or fanciful turn of mind. His slumbers were not disturbed by castle-building--he wasted none of his available time in making fa...

“I can’t tell, mother; but it will not be a day longer than I can help,” said Charlie, who had the grace to be serious at the moment of parting. “There’s only one thing, you kno...

Louis passed the night in the Rector’s library. He had no inclination for sleep; indeed, he was almost scornful of the idea that he _could_ sleep under his new and strange circu...

That was all Marian said when she came to the door to meet her mother and sister, who paused in the porch, overcome with fatigue, haste, and anxiety. Mrs Atheling was obliged to...

Lord Winterbourne, all his life, had been a man of guile; he was so long experienced in it, that dissimulation became easy enough to him, when he was not startled or thrown sudd...

They had heard from Charlie, who had already set out upon his journey; they had heard from Louis, whom Mr Foggo desired to take into his office in Charlie’s place in the mean ti...

So said Marian, coming languidly into their sleeping-room, and quite indifferent to Miss Anastasia. She was rather glad indeed to hasten Agnes away, to make an excuse for hersel...

Miss Anastasia “preferred not to see” Rachel--yet, with a wayward inclination still, was moved to drive by a circuitous road in front of the Old Wood House, where the girl was....

No one knew the real effect of the blow which had just fallen upon Lord Winterbourne. The guests, of whom his house was full, dispersed as if by magic. Even Mrs Edgerley, in the...

Agnes’s rambles out of doors had now almost always to be made alone. Rachel was much engrossed with the invalid of the Old Wood House, who had “taken a fancy” to the gentle litt...

In the mean time, immediate interest in their own occupations had pretty nearly departed from the inhabitants of the Old Wood Lodge. Agnes went on with her writing, Mamma with h...

While the Lodge remained in this ferment of suspense and uncertainty, Miss Anastasia had taken her measures for its defence and preservation. It was wearing now towards the end...

After this the family made immediate preparations for their return. Upon this matter Rachel was extremely uncomfortable, and much divided in her wishes. Miss Lucy, who had been...

Once more the Old Wood Lodge stood solitary under the darkening wintry skies, with no bright faces at its windows, nor gleam of household firelight in the dim little parlour, wh...

After Louis, the most urgent business in the house of the Athelings was that of Rachel, who was so pertinaciously anxious to be employed, that her friends found it very difficul...

Yet the household felt, in spite of itself, a difference by no means agreeable between the Old Wood Lodge and Bellevue. The dull brick wall of Laurel House was not nearly so ple...

The Rector became a very frequent visitor during the few following weeks at Bellevue. Louis had gone to see him, as he desired, and Mr Rivers anxiously endeavoured to persuade t...

While the Athelings at home were going on quietly, but with anxiety and disturbance of mind in this way, they were startled one afternoon by a sudden din and tumult out of doors...

The girls could not be persuaded to go to rest, let Mamma say what she would. Rachel, the only one who had no pretence, nor could find any excuse for sitting up, was the only on...

It was far from an easy achievement to get her safely conveyed up the stairs. She turned round and delivered addresses to them in most lively and oratorical Italian, eloquent on...

“You may say what you like, young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers, “you’ve a very good right to your own opinion; but I’m not a lawyer, nor bound by rule and precedent, mind. This i...

The first thing to be done in the morning, before it was time even for the postman, was to hasten to Killiecrankie Lodge, and ascertain all that could be ascertained concerning...

This evening was extremely quiet, and something dull, to the inhabitants of Bellevue. Though everybody knew of the little adventure of Mr Endicott, the young people were all too...

April, as cloudless and almost as warm as summer, a day when all the spring was swelling sweet in all the young buds and primroses, and the broad dewy country smiled and glisten...

“I do not know how he takes it, mother,” said Charlie. “I do not know if he takes it at all; he has not spoken a single word all the way home.”

It would not be easy to describe the state of mind of the feminine portion of this family which remained at home. Marian, in a strange and overpowering tumult--Marian, who was t...

Louis and Rachel returned that night with Miss Anastasia to the Priory, which, the old lady said proudly--the family jointure house for four or five generations--should be their...

It was September--the time when all Englishmen of a certain “rank in life” burn with unconquerable longings to get as far away from home as possible--and there was nothing remar...

Lord Winterbourne had been in Italy, going over the ground which Charlie Atheling had already examined so carefully. Miss Anastasia’s proverb was coming true. He who all his lif...

It was winter, but the heavens were bright--a halcyon day among the December glooms. All the winds lay still among the withered ferns, making a sighing chorus in the underground...

“The Winterbournes” had been for some time at home--they were now in London, and Marian had appeared at court in the full splendour of that young beauty of hers; which never had...

Many lesser changes had been involved in the great revolution which made the nameless Louis head of the family, and conferred upon him the estates and title of Lord Winterbourne...

Agnes Atheling was alone in old Miss Bridget’s parlour; it was a fervent day of July, and all the country lay in a hush and stillness of exceeding sunshine, which reduced all th...