The Head of the House of Coombe

The slice of a house from that time forward presented the external aspect to which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable street and those who passed through it had been...

She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to tell him that she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington Gardens on the morning that he had appointed...

Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one, there has ruled a Force illimitable, unconqu...

The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head’s own and having been accepted by his acquaintances was not infr...

On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was standing in Feather’s drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand and wearing the look of a man who is given up t...

The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin. She knew how much more important it seemed to her than it really was. If she had been six years old she might have...

“A nice, well-behaved Royal Family.” There had been several of them in Europe for some time. An appreciable number of them had prided themselves, even a shade ostentatiously, up...

Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited as well as allured him. Why hadn’t she told Robin she was her mother? Why did she never show her pictures in th...

Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the bracing air of the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite and forget her small tragedy, she had observed that...

“The child’s always been well, ma’am,” Andrews was standing, the image of exact correctness, in her mistress’ bedroom, while Feather lay in bed with her breakfast on a convenien...

When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with her. She could not have left them behind. From what source she had drawn a characterizing passionate, though si...

Sixteen passed by with many other things much more disturbing and important to the world than a girl’s birthday; seventeen was gone, with passing events more complicated still a...

If he had meant to speak he changed his mind after his first sight of her. He merely came in and closed the door behind him. Curious experiences with which life had provided him...

If one were to devote one’s mental energies to speculation as to what is going on behind the noncommittal fronts of any row of houses in any great city the imaginative mind migh...

In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew through the years in which It was growing also. On the occasion when her mother saw her, she realized that she w...

“Why,” had argued Mademoiselle Vallé, “should one fill a white young mind with ugly images which would deface with dark marks and smears, and could only produce unhappiness and,...

When, from Robin’s embarrassed young consciousness, there had welled up the hesitating confession, “She—doesn’t like me,” she could not, of course, have found words in which to...

Mademoiselle Vallé and Dowson together realized that after this the growing up process was more rapid. It always seems incredibly rapid to lookers on, after thirteen. But these...

Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the morning to make some purchases and as she had sat in her large landau she had greatly missed Miss Brent who had...

Von Hillern made no further calls on Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. His return to Berlin was immediate and Fräulein Hirsch came no more to give lessons in German. Later, Coombe learned fr...

“A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o’clock,” he said. “She is a Mademoiselle Vallé. She is accustomed to the educating of young children. She will present herself fo...

The history of the circumstances about to be related began many years ago—or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years before the world being rocked to and fro reveal...

The night before Robin went away as she sat alone in the dimness of one light, thinking as girls nearly always sit and think on the eve of a change, because to youth any change...

That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had become a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of Darte stirred but a passing wave of interest...

Two or three decades earlier the prevailing sentiment would have been that “poor little Mrs. Gareth-Lawless” and her situation were pathetic. Her acquaintances would sympathetic...

But though she had made no protest on being taken out of the drawing-room, Robin had known that what Andrews’ soft-sounding whisper had promised would take place when she reache...

It was not utterly dark in the room, though Robin, after passing her hands carefully over the walls, had found no electric buttons within reach nor any signs of candles or match...

As a result of this, her grace saw Mademoiselle Vallé alone a few mornings later and talked to her long and quietly. Their comprehension of each other was complete. Before their...

In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin built for herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the spiritual substance from which it was made from he...

The morning was a brighter one than London usually indulges in and the sun made its way into Feather’s bedroom to the revealing of its coral pink glow and comfort. She had alway...

It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he usually went away comparatively early. Feather could not imagine what his reason could be, but she was sure there wa...

What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest mother of her day and have emerged from her...