The Bracknels

Amy Bracknel, the morning sunlight picking out threads of gold from the loose mass of her dark-red hair, and accentuating the delightful purity and freshness of her complexion,...

As Mr. Bracknel drove along in his motor he caught a glimpse of a slight, bare-headed figure scudding across the fields in the direction of the house, and he seemed to recognise...

He dismounted from the motor and went straight to his private office without saying a word to anyone. He began at once to go through the early morning mail. The fifth letter tha...

The motor which had met Rusk at the train brought him to the office at half-past six, in order that they might all drive home together. Before they started he was introduced to...

Left to himself, Rusk of course took a closer survey of his room. It appeared to him to be extremely comfortable, giving, as Denis had said, on to the lawn at the side of the ho...

Next morning, after breakfast, Rusk and his pupil retired to a room called the library, which contained perhaps a couple of hundred volumes, nearly all of them unreadable--volum...

The advent of the new tutor was followed by a period of cold and wet and stormy weather, during which, except for a daily walk along heavy, muddy roads, under grey skies and dri...

They approached the long low house by a path that led them through a sweetly-smelling, trim, and brilliant garden. A gardener was mowing the grass at the side of the house, and...

They returned home by the back way, and as they passed the lodge a little bent old woman curtsied to them from the door. From a brown shrunken face, wrinkled like a withered rus...

Sunday morning was always with the Bracknels a period of disturbance and confusion. Breakfast was fixed for a particular time, half-past nine it happened to be, and at this hour...

Denis had awakened early that morning. He knew that it was Sunday, and that there was no hurry about getting up, so for a few minutes more he lay in a half dream, listening to a...

On Sundays if the Bracknels got up late they went to bed early. At eleven o’clock only the light in Rusk’s room was still burning--the rest of the house was wrapped in darkness,...

May kept her word, and Rusk was obliged to go out sketching alone, or, rather, accompanied only by Denis, who on such occasions brought a book with him and read, sometimes to hi...

Amy meanwhile hurried upstairs, but May, who was coming down, met her on the landing, and knew at once from her flushed face and peculiar expression that something unpleasant ha...

In the evening a remark Denis let fall seemed to point to the fact that he had been thinking a good deal of the unfortunate scene poor Amy had made that morning. They were sitti...

“She wanted to know when Mr. Rusk was coming over to paint a picture of their garden. She says he promised to do one ages ago, and they’re beginning to think he’s trying to draw...

“Well, I can’t see her. God bless my soul, you’d think I was made of money and had nothing to do but throw it about. Tell her I’m busy, and can’t talk to her now--tell her I’m a...

Up at the house no one knew anything of the wonderful news, for Mr. Bracknel did not telephone to his wife, nor did he come home to announce it to her. Rusk, coming out on to th...

Amy watched them from the window. If she had leaned out she might almost have heard their words, though they appeared, indeed, to be speaking but little as they wandered among t...

Alfred returned home that night. He had been away at a race-meeting, but the day, so far as he was concerned, had proved a failure, and an injudicious attempt later to neutraliz...

The moon-worshipper sat on his low white bed, hugging his knees. The posture was a favourite one with him when he was deep in thought or dreaming. He had only partially undresse...

On the afternoon of the last day of October Rusk was strolling along the river bank by himself. He had left Denis fishing in a stream hard by, where he had once caught a small t...

The son of a neighbour, a boy who was supposed to have looked after Denis--or who at any rate had been requested to do so--during the latter’s brief period at school, was presen...

It was about half an hour before lunch. From the study window Rusk had seen Mrs. Bracknel leave the house, and thinking this to be probably his best chance of getting her alone,...

He entered the study, expecting to find his pupil at work, but, though the lamp was burning and the table showed numerous traces of him, Denis was not there. Rusk was really jus...

Amy, when she came away from the library, wondered if the inopportune entry of May and Denis had really spoiled everything. For a few minutes all had been so well--better than e...

Rusk put on his dressing-gown and sat down. He would have given a good deal to know what had been, what was now, passing in Denis’s mind; but how in the world was he to find out...

In the morning, still horribly uncertain as to how things stood, he imagined that Mrs. Bracknel’s manner was slightly constrained, and jumped to the conclusion that she must kno...

As the long night drifted slowly away and a cold, livid dawn grew brighter, to Amy the whole aspect of life seemed to alter with it. The last flickering colour had faded from th...

Rusk was surprised, on his return to the house, to receive no intimation from either Mr. or Mrs. Bracknel that they wished to speak to him. He had taken it quite for granted tha...

When he came into the room, however, he found only Mrs. Bracknel there with May. The elder lady was unoccupied, but May had her writing materials spread out upon her lap and was...

Rusk had gone in search of Denis: he wanted to tell the boy of this unexpected alteration in their plans--he had an idea it would make him very happy--but Denis was neither in h...

Shortly before five o’clock on the afternoon of the next day, Mr. Bracknel, who had still several hours work before him, was shut up in his private office with two other persons...

Alfred walked slowly along the moist, greasy pavement in the November evening. A slight drizzle was falling and he turned up the collar of his overcoat. The streets were slimy a...

“I knew he was going to be late; he told me he would be. I rang him up again before I went to bed, but I could get no answer.”

On going downstairs they found Miss Birch and Miss Anna in the drawing-room. The two ladies had come over to convey their sympathies to their old friend, who, with May, was talk...

On the morning of the day after the funeral Rusk was seated before the fire in the Birches’ library, lost in thought. By-and-by he got up, and crossing the room, looked out at t...

Rusk and Miss Anna returned a good deal later than they had expected to, and just in time for dinner. They found Doctor Birch in the drawing-room with his sister, but Denis was...

Rusk had known, however, who would bear the tidings, had known it from the moment when, on emerging into the clearing before the stream, he had laid his burden gently on the gra...