The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day

I've been feverishly gay since I came to Meg. I have walked between stormwinds--grief behind and grief that I must enter. I've dined and danced, and I've clenched my hands lest...

Last night came the Van Dams' dance and my triumph--and a greater triumph still; for to-day I have a wonderful, beautiful chapter to add to my own book, to the story of the only...

There was a famous lawyer among Aunt's guests and a United States Senator and a real author, a woman who has written books; but people brushed past them all for a word with me!

"You say Winship is around at your place?" asked Judge Baker Friday morning. I had before told him about the approaching marriage. "The dear old boy! I am very glad."

Merrily flew the years and almost before I realised it came graduation. In the leafy dark of the village street, in the calm of a perfect June night, John Burke told me that he...

She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner than I dared to hope--and--I must be good to her. I must love her.

I am writing before breakfast. They told me to lie quietly in bed this morning, but I'm not tired, not excited. Nothing more happened than I might have expected. I couldn't have...

This has been one of my worst days, and I have for a long time had no days but bad ones. Three things have happened, either one of which would alone have been a calamity. Togeth...

Because of one pestilential dun, I've done what the weary waiting for money, money, money would never have driven me to do. I've been to Uncle, unknown to his wife, to ask advic...

I rushed ahead, jostling people in silly haste; I dawdled. I carefully set my feet across the joinings of paving blocks; I zigzagged; I turned corners aimlessly. Once a policema...

Since Monday I have left the house but once. The Judge has given me a microscope so that I may study at home instead of going to Barnard; and to please him I make a pretence of...

I've been sitting for my portrait to Van Nostrand. It is an offering to the shades of Prof. Darmstetter. I must preserve some attempted record of my beauty for his sake; though...

It isn't the simple country girl of a few weeks ago whom Ned loves, but a wonderful woman--a Personage; and I am glad, glad, glad! Though no woman could be good enough for him....

"Helen, you seem tired," John said as I met him at the door--at first I peeped out from behind it, I remember, as if I feared the bogey-man--"Have you been too hard at work?"

My very own room--for the most delightful thing has happened; I'm visiting Mrs. Baker--Aunt Frank I am to call her, though she is really Ma's cousin--and she has asked me to spe...

Helen and I were to have been married just a year ago. To-day I have been going over her own story of her life--of her meeting with Darmstetter, of the blight he cast upon her,...

I have broken John's heart, given up my home, estranged my friends; I have given up even Ned for love of him. But I'd have gone to the ends of the earth in gladness, I'd have gi...

I had had but a glimpse of the new comer in her flight across the floor; I knew she had scarlet lips and shining eyes; that youth and joy and unimagined beauty had entered with...

I had tried to borrow money of Cadge, for the third time, and she told me she had none--which was true, or she would have let me have it. Then she said:--

I wonder if I couldn't _earn_ money. For the last week--nothing but trouble. No check from Father. Hugh Bellmer I have not seen. Strathay has really gone, spirited away by that...

Not for anything this girl has done, though Science will hear from her; not for her voice, though no nightingale sings so melodiously; but for a face more glorious than that oth...

Why, I had dragged her to school on a sled when she was a child. I watched her grow up. For years I saw her nearly every day at the State University in the West that already see...

And yet--the thought flashed through my mind that things almost as strange have become the commonplace. I had seen the bones of my own hand through the veiling flesh. I had list...

Our district schoolhouse was a shadeless, unpainted box. Within, whittled desks, staring windows and broken plastering made it a fit prison for the boys, whose rough ways were p...

I had never seen any one die. It was as if life were a precious wine rushing from an overturned glass that I could not put right again. I did not dream a man could be so fragile.

We had issued on the Boulevard, and a few steps brought us in view of the stately white shrine on Claremont Heights. But I looked instead at her brilliant face against the velve...

Really I am almost happy, for in the most unexpected and yet the most natural fashion, my perplexities have vanished; and I believe that my life will not be, after all, a failure.

Going to church was a good old New England custom that in our family had borne transplanting to the West. Sunday was almost the pleasantest day in the week to me--not elbowing s...

"Go to bed early and get your beauty sleep," says Aunt, but I push open the window and lean upon the sash and let the cold air blow over me. I'd like to dance a thousand miles i...

I stayed for supper, over which Kitty's big Angora cat presided; Kitty herself, her red curls in disorder, whimsical, shrewd, dipping from jest to earnest, teased Helen and wait...

If I have dwelt so long upon the laboratory and its master, it is because there the great blessing came that has glorified my whole existence. This was the way of it.

I had quite stopped fretting over John's absence. Indeed, though of course I wished to see him, I dreaded it; I was so happy, just as I was, and I had so many things to think ab...

There is no joy in heaven or earth like the joy of being beautiful--incomparably beautiful! It's such a never-ending surprise and delight that I come out of my musings with a st...

Last Wednesday--the day after the papers published so much about me--a strange man called in Mrs. Baker's absence and begged me to let him take my photograph--as a service to Ar...

I. THE KISS THAT LIED II. THE IRONY OF LIFE III. THE SUDDENNESS OF DEATH IV. SOME REMARKS ABOUT CATS V. THE LOVE OF LORD STRATHAY VI. LITTLE BROWN PARTRIDGES VII. LETTERS AND SC...

I. CHRISTMAS II. A LOOKING OVER BY THE PACK III. SNARLING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK IV. IN THE INTERESTS OF MUSIC V. A PLAGUE OF REPORTERS VI. LOVE IS NOTHING VII. LOVE IS ALL VIII. A...

I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT II. A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON III. THE QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE IV. GIRL BACHELOR AND BIOLOGIST V. THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS VI. THE GREAT CHANGE VII. THE C...