The house on the marsh

“Wanted, a Governess; must be young.” I cut out the advertisement thus headed eagerly from the _Times_. I was eighteen, and my youth had been the great obstacle to my getting an...

I was down in the dining-room the next morning, with the unfailing punctuality of a new-comer, at the sound of the breakfast-bell, before any one else was there. Mr. Rayner came...

The shock given me by those few overheard words--“You should not have spoken to her. Don’t you know she comes from the house on the marsh?”--was so great that I lay awake half t...

In spite of the rain and the mud, Mr. Rayner was in the brightest of humors; and his first words dispelled my fear that he might have overheard the warning Mr. Reade had just gi...

The next day was Sunday, to which I had already begun to look forward eagerly, as one does in the country, as a break in the monotonous round of days. Old Mr. Reade was not at c...

The next morning I woke up with that strange feeling of oppression which is caused by something unpleasant heard the night before. I soon remembered what it was, and tried to sh...

Very soon after Sarah’s somewhat harsh and uncalled-for reproof of my vanity I began to suffer a punishment for it. The country air, which had brought unwonted roses to my cheek...

“You are getting pale again, my dear child,” said Mr. Rayner to me the very next morning--he met me, at the foot of the stairs, dressed for my walk with Haidee. “We must find so...

Mr. Reade’s cruel and prejudiced accusations against Mr. Rayner had not in the least shaken my faith in the kindness and goodness of the master of the Alders; but I felt anxious...

It was the elfish baby-girl Mona who first put me on the track of the solution of the mystery about Mr. Rayner’s room. This ill-cared-for little creature, instead of resenting t...

When I had dried my tears and sat down in my favorite arm-chair to consider my grievances against Sarah, I wondered what had made her take such a strong dislike to me as she see...

I slackened my pace when I got to the top of the first flight of stairs, and walked softly through the corridor where the nursery was, for fear of waking Mona; and, as I went sl...

“But I cannot go away and sleep, my child, till I am quite satisfied that you are all right. Put on your dressing gown, and come out and let me see you and be sure.”

I took advantage of the rest of my day’s holiday to work very hard at the text I was doing for the church. I thought that Mr. Reade might call for it that day, but he did not. A...

“Then I’ll say Mrs. Manners begs you to come at once, and I’ll start off with the boys; and, when we get outside the gate, I’ll send them on with the benches and wait about for...

There were four ladies already in the carriage which was waiting for me at the gate--Lady Mills herself, with another more matronly-looking lady by her side, whose name, I alrea...

I got up next morning directly I was called, and was downstairs long before anybody else--but I was glad of that, for I wanted to explore the garden. It was a beautiful, warm, b...

When Sir Jonas left me at the gate of the Alders that morning, a sense of desolation crept over me as I walked down the drive, followed by the gaunt Sarah carrying my little tru...

Mr. Rayner was right. I was very tired; and the next morning I overslept myself, and did not come downstairs until breakfast was more than half over. It had been unusually punct...

During the whole of the drive back to Geldham it was old Mr. Reade who talked to me, and not Laurence, who drove along, silent and grave, pulling my cloak affectionately up to m...

I sat down by the table as soon as Sarah had left the schoolroom, and rested my head in my hands. I did not want to cry, though a few tears trickled down between my fingers at t...

In his astonishment at Mrs. Rayner’s ghostlike entrance and appearance, Mr. Carruthers had not paid much attention to the end of my question, and I determined to try to get anot...

All the stairs below where Sarah had slipped were safe and in their usual state. At the bottom, an almost senseless heap, lay Sarah, with one arm twisted under her and her head...

I gave one cry as my candle fell, and then, instinctively shutting my eyes, as if to hide from myself the dreadful fact that I was in darkness, I felt my way up the ladder out o...

As soon as we came out of church that morning, I found an opportunity of speaking to Mrs. Manners, and asked her shyly if she could give me any message to take that afternoon to...

On Tuesday afternoon, while I was helping Haidee to dress her doll in the dining-room, there was a ring at the front-door bell, and shortly afterwards Jane came in, looking rath...

Mr. Rayner slept that night in the dressing-room leading out of the large front room which his wife now occupied. I met him coming out of it as I went downstairs to breakfast th...

We followed the dog-cart at a safe distance, which was not very far off in the fog, until it stopped at the stable-gate. Then we slipped past quite unseen on the other side of t...

As the detective pronounced the name “James Woodfall,” I gave a cry that startled them all. Shaken as my trust in Mr. Rayner had already been, the shock seemed in a moment to ch...

The heartless cruelty of Mr. Rayner in allowing his poor submissive wife to live in a room such as he would not for the world have kept horse, or dog, or even violin in shocked...