The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Vol. 2 (of 3)

Further surprises of a bewildering kind awaited our abbé in the capital, which blurred the growing clearness of his sky. The temporary tranquillity of Touraine had deceived him,...

With a turn of the kaleidoscope is another pattern formed. Lying in the great state bed with its ponderous carven canopy and heavy curtains of deep blue velvet fringed with gold...

These were exciting times--no doubt of it--even to humdrum provincials, remote from the madding crowd. The web on the muse's loom grew so rapidly that the eye could not follow t...

Loth as she was to leave her benefactress in so critical a plight, there was no denying that the Marquise de Gange was an incumbrance in the royal dwelling; yet another helpless...

The quartet that journeyed back to solitude was not a lively one, for each of the four occupants of the travelling berline was fully engrossed by private speculations. The cheva...

Could we remove the fronts from the imposing domiciles whose dignified exteriors compel our admiring awe, we should often rub our eyes in astonishment at the curious spectacle w...

Gabrielle's injunctions to Monsieur Galland were concise. The maréchal must not be told too much. The good solicitor must keep to himself her worn and haggard aspect. Nor must h...

Gabrielle learned to practise her new art so well that day followed day in usual routine without suspicion being aroused of the bold thing she had done. It occurred to none of t...

The abbé's departure left a void in the household. He had grown to be so conspicuous and necessary a feature in it that even Gabrielle regretted his mercurial presence, while co...