The foster-sisters

IF one thought anything of omens (which I do not in general, though I confess I would rather not see the new moon through glass) I might think it a bad one that my first distinc...

I WAS born in England about the year 1728 as nearly as I can find out. My mother was first cousin to Lady Leighton, and married a gentleman of her own name, who for love of her,...

THERE could hardly be two people more differently constituted than Amabel Leighton and myself, which is perhaps one reason why we have continued such fast friends all through li...

IT was I think, about a year after our adventures in the caverns, that Dénise died. She was the only pupil left except Amabel, Desireè and myself—Desireè affected great devotion...

WE found Sister Sacristine very busy with her silver, of which there was a great deal about the altar, and very glad of our offered help. We went zealously to work, dusting and...

On one of these days, the superior received a letter from the bishop, which was speedily communicated to the whole family. His greatness wrote that having had our title and char...

IN the course of a week, all things had settled into their usual way with us. The ornaments were restored to the church, and the damage to the building was repaired as far as po...

I SHALL never forget my sensations when I felt myself fairly outside the convent walls. Though I had lived in France sixteen years and more, I had never seen more of it than was...

THE next day Father Brousseau came to see us. We had been so hurried and flurried at the time of our landing the day before, that we had hardly exchanged a dozen words, and now...

THE next morning, I waked feeling weary and weak enough. Amabel was already up, and I saw her seated near the window with her work. I lay a little while thinking over what had h...

There was a Roman Catholic Chapel in Newcastle, but it had been closed ever since our arrival, and the priest had left town. The rumors of a second attempt of the Chevalier de S...

"You ought to take something yourself, Mrs. Thorpe!" said Mrs. Crump, who was presiding at the table. "You will be ill, and have a turn of spasms again, if you keep on your feet...

We were equally amazed at what we found, and what we did not find. Above all were we surprised, that so little was said about the Holy Virgin, and the invocation of the Saints a...

MR. WESLEY was right in saying that Mr. Cheriton might make up his mind to suffer persecution. He was also right in saying that religion was at a low ebb in the Church of Englan...

whole. I certainly had reason to think well of her, for she left me a pretty remembrance of a necklace and some other trinkets and a small sum of money.

ON Tuesday afternoon, word came to us, that the Ladies Leighton had arrived at the Queen's Head Inn, and we at once set off to pay our duty to them, accompanied by Mrs. Thorpe h...

HIGHBECK Hall was a very long day's journey from Newcastle, in the best of roads. A frost, the first of the season, had set in two or three days before, and the roads were as ha...

JENNY came to call us betimes in the morning, but we could hardly dress in time for breakfast, so occupied were we in gazing from our projecting window at the great picture spre...

WE soon began to feel quite at home at Highbeck Hall, and knew all the nooks and corners about the old place, which were accessible to us. We were not a little curious about the...

Mr. Lethbridge, the new rector, proved quite a contrast to Doctor Brown. He was a thin, serious faced young man, very much in earnest, and not always (or so I thought) very disc...

"THAT is it!" said Mr. Cheriton, striking his hand on the table, while Amabel and I stood as if dumb. "She told me when I would not come to her card parties on Sunday, that she...

Amabel kept up wonderfully considering, and tried her best not to let her trouble, trouble others. But it is not the people that bear things best, who feel them least, and as I...

SIR JULIUS arrived sure enough, and with him Lord Bulmer, and another gentleman whom I did not know, but who was presented to Amabel as Captain Dangerfield. The moment I saw thi...

I HAD taken a short cut across the park in my hurry, but, as so often happens, my more haste turned out worse speed, for I got among the springs and had to go back.

Meantime a visitor arrived in the shape of Alick Graham, old Elsie's nephew, and Lady Thornyhaugh's servant. He brought Mrs. Deborah a present of moor game, cheeses, and fine wo...

LADY Thornyhaugh turned out a true prophet. Amabel slept long and heavily, and when she waked she was unable to rise. The old lady came up to see her, and pronounced at once tha...

"Wilson, who has been here since the fire, says that her lady was like a distracted woman when she missed her step-daughter and discovered that she was nowhere concealed in the...