The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories

I WAS born (said she) in the north country, where the winters are long and cold, where snow sometimes falls in the valleys, and the high mountains for months are white with it....

"Not sure--wavering already! That's the way the mischief begins. If the women get a fad for you they'll work you like a galley-slave. You'll have to do your round of 'copy' ever...

THE Hermit lived in a cave in the hollow of a hill. Below him was a glen, with a stream in a coppice of oaks and alders, and on the farther side of the valley, half a day's jour...

"That of promising to use her influence to get people appointed. But you always talk of politics in the vocabulary of European courts. Thank Heaven, Ella has less imagination. S...

Halidon, who had picked up another job in the Orient, wrote me an elegiac letter on Paul's death, ending with--"And what about the Academy?" and for all answer I sent him a news...

It was not till late winter that the plague abated; and the spring and early summer following were heavy with rains and great heat. When the Hermit visited his penitent at the f...

In order to be near the scene of action, Garnett went to breakfast at his usual haunt, determined to despatch his business as early in the day as politeness allowed. The head wa...

He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch of the donkey. "There were days when I couldn't look at that thing--couldn't face it. But I forced myself to p...

Seated at the young man's side on the satin cushions, he remained silent while the carriage rolled smoothly and rapidly through the net-work of streets leading to the Boulevard...

She made a faint inarticulate sound. She wanted to say: "No--Robert's speech was to be the last--" but she could not bring herself to pronounce Ransom's name, and at the moment...

While Margaret was receiving these impressions, Lady Caroline, with quick bird-like twists of her head, was gathering others from the pale void spaces of the drawing-room. Her e...

He learned in time that this unnoticeableness was the most conspicuous thing about her. Burning at best with a mild light, she became invisible in the glare of her mother's pers...

He gave a slight shrug and took up his hat; but she interposed to say that if it didn't make any difference she would prefer to have him go and sit with poor Caspar, while she r...

But why had she always, so tamely, allowed her aspect to conform to her situation? Perhaps a gayer exterior would have provoked a brighter fate. Even now--she turned back to the...

Mornway stood up slowly, his eyes on his friend's averted face. The ashes dropped from his cigar, scattering a white trail across the carpet which had excited Mrs. Nimick's envy.