The Barrier: A Novel

To Judith Blanchard the publication of her sister's engagement was an experience. Hourly Beth came to show a new letter or present, and with head at Judith's shoulder sighed bec...

At the conference between Mather and Pease various matters were discussed which are not to the direct purpose of this story. Such were, for instance, the electrical and mechanic...

As time passed on, Colonel Blanchard watched with interest, mixed with solicitude, the love-matters of his daughters. Judith's affairs were going to his satisfaction, for though...

As the winter advanced, Judith found herself never free from her struggle, the interest of which grew not only greater, but at times intense. For gossip, as she foresaw, was bus...

It was midwinter, in the full swing of social events, yet Judith had been withdrawing herself more and more from what was going on. She disliked people's talk; besides, her inte...

Judith sat in Mr. Fenno's little office, while in the larger room the magnates were slowly gathering. She was deeply interested in the result of the coming meeting, a little anx...

While the Colonel lay unburied his house was unchanged. His daughters talked over their plans, and settled it between them, to the dismay of their new guardians, that Judith was...

It is wearing when one's wishes travel faster than events, and have to wait for time to catch up. Mrs. Harmon felt it so. "The days go too slow," she declared to Ellis, a week a...

"It is that dinner," answered Beth. "I wish to make sure you understand--what people will think of it, I mean. Excuse me, Judith; I see it more clearly than you can, as a third...

Mr. Peveril Pease had finished his week's work, and feeling no obligation to attend the golf club tea, went home and settled himself in his snuggery among his books. When his fe...

On the day which brought to Mather his two crushing defeats, the cause of them, Ellis, that type of modern success, openly embarked upon his latest and his strangest venture. No...

Beth was much disappointed that evening; it was Saturday, yet Jim did not come to dinner. She wished for him especially as a relief from the irritation of Ellis's presence; she...

Political and social undercurrents were slowly working to the surface in the world of Stirling. Though it was barely spring, the mayoralty campaign was well under way, promising...

Judith, before she met Ellis for this second time, had been bored. Chebasset was so dull that it was dreary; in the country-houses were given little teas, slow whist-parties, or...

But when Mather had been another hour at the mill he forgot the engagement thus made. For in going about he noticed that the quiet in the place was different from the bustle of...

The whirling in Ellis's head was ceasing, the blind restlessness was slowly leaving him. Yet still he walked up and down in his library, unmindful of the call of hunger. For as...

If Mrs. Harmon's marriage was her most brilliant success, it was also her greatest disappointment--as it was her husband's. At times when she thought of her position, she was sa...

The Blanchards' equipage was a perfect expression of quiet respectability, for the carriage was sober in colour, was drawn by a strong and glossy horse, and was driven by a coac...

For some time Beth Blanchard had been changing back to her old self. Once unburdened by confession, her heart seemed free again, and Beth began to think of Jim Wayne as a part o...

Those youthful promptings which so stirred Pease, far beyond his own comprehension, kept working in him through the summer weeks. The joy of living, which he supposed he had mas...

Jim Wayne had been going so frequently to Chebasset that people were beginning to talk of it. All foresaw the consummation of his courtship, and some gloomy shakes of the head w...

Had she accepted Ellis, or had she recalled her refusal when her father begged her, the Colonel would now be living. She might have guessed the desperate resolve that he had tak...

Judith stood waiting at the telephone; at the Club the waiter had gone to fetch Mather. How slow he was in coming! How tired she felt! The wires sang in her ears; she heard fain...

A parting shot in conversation sometimes rankles like the Parthian's arrow. So it had been with Pease. Beth had said to him: "How can you think you know life, when you live so m...

It is assumed in many fairy tales that the story ends with the engagement, the beginning of which marks the end of trouble. But love, though a solvent of selfishness, works slow...

There is a certain circle so well-to-do that it is occupied chiefly in guarding its property and maintaining its exclusiveness. There is a city so small, politically, that it is...

The summer passed; through October the city gathered its own to itself again. The stay-at-homes, such as Miss Cynthia and Mrs. Wayne, saw with relief shutters go down and blinds...

While Judith Blanchard, as if defying fate, held her head higher than before, there grew on one of our characters, namely Jim Wayne, the habit of looking at the ground. Jim was...

The Colonel pulled himself together. Ellis was gone, and relieved from that oppressive influence Blanchard held up his head. He tried to smile, and found that he succeeded fairl...

Once at home, where Beth and the Colonel were still absent, Judith went to the book-case in the little parlour and drew out the volume of Rossetti's poems. "Jenny," she found in...

The Judge opened the street-door for Beth, and seemed to be preparing to follow her out. In spite of all she had gone through, perhaps because of it, her mind was alive to littl...

Mrs. Harmon was very petulant; indeed, her aspect in one of lower station would have been deemed sulky. Reviewing the afternoon, she was convinced that to have brought Ellis the...

No young man can bear to sit down idly under misfortune; but though the chief results of Mather's work were lost to him, and his great plans--his subway--swept away, and though...