The Greatest Heiress in England

A country town, quiet, simple, and dull, chiefly of old construction, but with a few new streets and scattered villas of modern flimsiness, a river flowing through it, dulled an...

John Trevor had been a school-master for the greater part of his life. How he acquired so well sounding a name nobody knew. He had no relations, he always said, in the male line...

“I think I have got it now, Ford, I think I have got it now,” the old man said, rubbing his hands. “But it has given me a great deal of trouble. Get yourself a chair, and sit do...

From the two old men and their consultations it was a relief, even in that chilly and dismal day, to get outside into the free air, though it was heavy with the chill of moistur...

The children, as they were called in the Terrace, came home just in time for tea. Mr. Trevor had changed the course of his existence for some time past. He who all his life had...

Philip Rainy was, as his relation had been obliged to avow, an excellent young man; there was nothing to be found fault with in his moral character, and everything to be applaud...

The life of Lucy Trevor, at this period, was divided between two worlds, very dissimilar in constitution. The odd household over which her father’s will and pleasure was paramou...

Lucy went home a little impressed by what Mrs. Stone had said. It had never occurred to her before to think of anything but her father’s will and pleasure in the matter, or to s...

The important communication made to her by Mr. Trevor made a great impression upon the mind of Mrs. Stone, but it was an impression of a confusing kind, disturbing all her previ...

“Do you know,” said Katie Russell, “there is a gentleman in the house? None of us have seen him; but he came yesterday. He is young, and tall, and nice-looking. He is their neph...

Mrs. Stone’s room was fitted up in the latest, which I need not say is far from being the newest fashion. It would indeed have been an insult to her to say that anything in it w...

“And so Christopher went away to look for the great strong man that King Maximus was afraid of; but I forgot, his name was not Christopher then, but only Offero, a heathen; you...

It is not to be supposed that in the _tête-à-tête_ dinner that followed Lucy was set free from the interminable subject of that fortune which occupied all her father’s thoughts....

The prophets of evil were not deceived; when a kind of general impression arises in respect to an invalid that a crisis is approaching, it almost always is justified by the even...

After this alarm, however, Mr. Trevor got better, and there was an interval of calm. Life resumed its usual routine, and all went on as before. During this interval, Frank St. C...

Little Jock Trevor had never been a favorite with his father; there had been between them nothing of the caressing intercourse which generally exists between a very old father a...

The ladies went away, the men remained behind; most of them took their seats again with evident relief. However agreeable the two halves of humanity may be to each other in cert...

Lady Randolph made haste to strike while the iron was hot. She _was_ a clever woman, conscious enough (though, perhaps, no more than other people) of her own interests, and with...

The past seemed entirely swept away and obliterated from Lucy when she found herself in Lady Randolph’s London house, inhabiting two rooms charmingly and daintily furnished, wit...

“That is just what I was thinking,” Lady Randolph said, “we can do two things, Lucy, two benefits at once. I know just the place for little Jock! since he wants to go to school-...

This visit made a turning-point in Lucy’s life. She returned home very thoughtful, more serious than usual--a result which seemed very easily comprehensible to her experienced f...

Lucy was permitted to take Jock to Hampstead by herself in Lady Randolph’s brougham next day. They had spent the morning buying things for him, a school-boy dressing-case, a lit...

A very short time after this Lucy received the parcel of books which had been promised her. The season was growing to its height, and no time had been lost in putting the three...

The days that followed were full of this big person. Lucy found his company so pleasant that she lingered, to her own great consternation, talking to him, till Lady Randolph ret...

Lucy rode to Hampstead that morning, Sir Thomas, to her great surprise, volunteering to go with her. He had some one in those regions whom he too wished to see, he said. Lucy wa...

Lucy rode home without waiting for Sir Thomas, with a heavy heart. She said very little when she got back. To Lady Randolph’s questions she had scarcely anything to reply. In La...

While Lucy’s mind was thus soothed and comforted by the consciousness of doing her duty, a very different effect was produced upon her father’s executors, who, it is scarcely ne...

And now the period of Lucy’s first experiment in life was over. From all the delicacies with which Lady Randolph’s care had surrounded her, and from the atmosphere of refinement...

Four persons in a fly on a hot August day, one of them large, and warm, and “worrited,” another very tall, with knees up to his chin, do not make a very agreeable party. Lucy, u...

That very evening, notwithstanding her supposed fatigue, the little world of Farafield was roused to welcome Lucy. The rector and his wife, going out for a drive in the cool of...

Lucy spent two or three days after this in comparative solitude. Her friends, both the Rushtons and Mrs. Stone, agreed in feeling that it would be indecorous to make any rush at...

Lucy was greatly comforted by the visit of Sir Thomas. It made her sad to see him go away, and the consciousness that he was no longer within reach raised for the moment another...

The day on which these events occurred was the day of Mr. Frank St. Clair’s arrival at the White House, where he had come dutifully in answer to his aunt’s summons, to hear of “...

The Rushtons lived in a big old red brick house close to the town hall in what was still called the market-place of Farafield, though all the meaner hubbub of the market had lon...

Lucy found the picnic very amusing. She had never known any of the delights of society; and the gay party in the Abbey ruins, and the ride--though Emmie did not know in the leas...

It will be seen from all this that Mrs. Ford was but an indifferent guardian for an heiress. Her ideas of duty were of a peculiar kind. She had newly furnished the drawing-room....

“Lucy, I never thought you were a flirt before,” said Mrs. Rushton, half severe, half jocular. They did not walk home with her now, as they had done in the warm August evenings....

This was Lucy’s first experience of love-making. It is needless to say that it was very far from being her last; but for the moment it was an appalling revelation to her, an inc...

Lucy spent a most melancholy night. It was dreadful to her to think that she had been not only “no good,” but the doer of harm. She imagined to herself poor St. Clair, with that...

The troubles of this interesting picnic were not yet over; there was tea to be made over an impromptu fire from a gypsy kettle, which the young people generally thought one of t...

Some one else got down from the break after Lucy had been carefully handed out by Bertie, and followed her silently in the rain and dark to the door. He went in after her, with...

When Lucy awoke next morning a world of cares and troubles seemed to surround her bed. The previous day seemed nothing but a long imbroglio of discomforts, one after the other....

Jock was not allowed to come down to dinner that day, and Lucy, refusing to leave him, sat with the culprit on her knee, their arms clasped about each other, their hot cheeks to...

Not a word could Lucy say all the way home. She was flushed and agitated, her hand burning, which grasped Jock’s, her eyes dim with moisture. When she got home she made no reply...

Sir Thomas Randolph got up next morning with his usual good spirits a little heightened by something, he could not immediately recollect what. The doubt lasted only for a moment...

There was one thing which Sir Thomas got out of his matrimonial arrangements which was more than he expected, and that was a great deal of fun. After he had received, in the way...