The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent

The parlor at Grocombe Vicarage was but a small room and a shabby one. There was a drawing-room which was the admiration of the parish into which all visitors were shown, but Mr...

Lord Frogmore’s bronchitis was very severe, so bad that the doctors looked very serious, and notwithstanding the vigilance and understanding of Rogers, who knew his master, as h...

Lord Frogmore had always been cheerful, but now he was gayer than ever--for to be sure Mary soon recovered from her momentary illness which was more nerves than anything else, t...

Mary was lying as usual in bed, much shrunken from the Mary we knew, her mild countenance clouded with that haze of trouble which seems to come with any disturbance of the mind....

Mary was carried to her own room, where she came to herself without agitation or apparent disturbance, asking only “Where am I?” when she recovered her consciousness as she look...

Lord Frogmore was about sixty when his step-brother, John Parke, his heir presumptive, announced to him one day his desire to marry. John was thirty-five, the son of another mot...

To describe the state of the Park under the effect of this event would be very difficult. It changed altogether in the most curious way. Indeed Lord Frogmore’s country seat had...

Letitia was a long time in the room, and was not visible at all downstairs during the moment of gladness which changed the aspect of everything. Her door remained locked all the...

It is a great wonder in morals that the chances of matrimonial changes which may occur in the life of an unmarried woman, absolutely at any moment, should not exercise a more de...

When Mrs. Parke came downstairs she exhausted herself in civilities to her old brother-in-law, and in apologies that she had not been there to receive him. She had been much ups...

Lord Frogmore stayed for some days at Greenpark. He caught cold--quite a slight cold, not worth making any fuss about, if he had not taken such tremendous care of his health, Le...

When Letty came stealing into the ante-room as soon as she was up, which was between seven and eight in the morning, she was received by Miss Hill with a stern countenance, to t...

It was in the beginning of the shooting-season, when birds were still plentiful and the best of the sportsmen visitors were come or coming, that Letitia was one evening startled...

Letitia was in her room, by the open window, wrapped in a warm dressing-gown. It was rather cold, though the day was bright, to sit by an open window; but she was watching for h...

Lady Frogmore had not been much disturbed by any external interruption since she had been led away from her husband’s room after his death. Poor Mary was very natural in all her...

John came into the room with gloom upon his countenance, and a frown upon his noble brow. Letitia had arrested the course of her own passion--she had dried her eyes, and dropped...

Next morning Mar, who had slept little all night, was found to be feverish and unwell, which was a state of affairs by no means unusual or alarming, but which gave to Letitia a...

The room swam in Letitia’s eyes; a mist seemed to rise over the sparkling dining-table--over all the faces of the guests. The voices, too, rang in a kind of hubbub, one confused...

Agnes Hill had given herself entirely up to her sister in these latter days. There had been nothing at all remarkable about Miss Hill in the former portion of her life. She had...

This strange state of things continued for some days. Mary found herself living as in a state of siege. She was permitted to visit the children in the nursery, and nurse was qui...

“Then, I suppose, there is scarcely any hope,” said Mr. Blotting, the other executor who had come over to inquire after the patient. The country altogether was moved for poor Ma...

Letitia hurried along the passage to the room which she always occupied at the Park, and where Felicie was already arranging her “things” out of the box. She took refuge in this...

It was said by everybody that nothing could be more pathetic than Lord Frogmore’s funeral. When a man dies over seventy he is usually attended to his grave, if he has been a goo...

It was June, the brightest weather, and everything at the Park was bright. A family of five children, of whom the eldest had just attained his majority, while the others were ol...

Little Mar said nothing at any time about this shock to his being, which occurred when he was so very young that his after recollection of it was of the most imperfect kind--a c...

Lady Frogmore had hurried home when she left the Park the day after Duke’s birthday full of agitation and confused trouble, not knowing what ailed her, dissatisfied with herself...

She took him upstairs to the morning-room, in which she had been living, and which was full of traces of her habitation and ways--the book on the table, the work, even the writi...

Mary sat by the bed in which Agnes lay for nearly half the night. She was so determined on this strange arrangement that her sister had to yield, and as long as the darkness las...

The sun was very bright on that July morning. When should it be bright if not in that crown of summer? It triumphed over all the vain attempts of curtains drawn and shutters clo...

Mrs. Parke went home with a little excitement in her mind, caused by the sight of this friend of her youth. The familiar form brought back still more distinctly all that was pas...

It was a dull morning, one of those grey days which sometimes come in autumn, when all the winds are still, when the changed and ruddy foliage hangs like a sort of illumination...

“I am her brother, you fool,” said Ralph. “Go back and say that it’s her brother, and I must see her before I go. What do you stand there for, gaping? Go back and tell her I can...

The condition of mind of Mrs. John Parke when she escaped from the hands of Lady Frogmore was one which no words of mine could describe. And yet her excitement was scarcely grea...

Agnes got home so late that she did not see Mary that evening. And next day there was not very much conversation between them. Lady Frogmore could see by her sister’s looks that...

The day after the hurried visit of Agnes to the Park had been one of gathering darkness, and exhaustion to the young sufferer. He was so ill and had been ill so long that the in...

When Agnes went upstairs after this genial but interrupted meal she was met by her sister’s maid, who begged her to go at once to Lady Frogmore. “My lady’s very restless,” said...

The next morning rose in a blaze of sunshine as though everything in heaven and earth conjoined to make Duke’s day of rejoicing brilliant and happy. It was the day of all others...

Letitia’s triumph and delight when she found that she was to have her ball to herself, without the presence either of Lady Frogmore, who would have made her seem second in what...

The family were all very much startled by the news, which Letitia communicated only when the arrival of a nurse in the costume which is not to be mistaken startled the household...

“I am very glad,” said the man of business, “to hear that everything has gone so well.” He gave John a somewhat curious look from under his eyelids. He did not doubt the honest...

Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction of his family, John Parke began his married life very comfortably, and it is doubtful whether he had ever been so happy in his life before. L...

When the ladies got back to the Dower House, Letitia’s letter was awaiting them. Agnes had not known what to say on the way. She had maintained the little fiction of the headach...

Mary came back from her travels a most composed and dignified young matron, bearing her honors sweetly, yet with a mild consciousness of their importance. I say young, for thoug...

This was how it all began; how it went on was more than anyone could say, certainly not John himself, who woke up one morning to feel himself an engaged man with a more startled...

In the moment of that movement, half-dragged by the fast and firm hold upon her, half pushing her captor, and notwithstanding the horror and panic of her arrest and discovery, L...

Mar’s illness continued week after week, never violent, but never ending. He was not very ill, but his life was being slowly drained away. The fire of the fever was low, not a g...

John Parke woke next morning to see his wife in her dressing gown, moving vaguely about the room, a shadow against the full summer light that came in at all the windows. He coul...

“There is no will but the early one made soon after the marriage,” said Lord Frogmore’s man of business on the morning of the second day. “No guardians appointed, no directions...

Lady Frogmore was called to her husband before she had any answer to her question from little Mar. She had asked it with great kindness, with the sweetness of manner which Mary...

Lord Frogmore had divined the course that would be taken by the ladies, and as soon as he escaped he hurried off in the opposite direction, from which, when Mary reached the doo...

The baby was born next morning, after a night which was terrible for all the household in the Park. Mrs. John left hurriedly after she had called the attendants to Mary, who, sh...

When Lord Frogmore arrived at Grocombe Vicarage the day but one before his marriage, Mary was still so pale, so depressed and nervous, that the brisk old bridegroom was much dis...