The making of a woman

SHE sat at her window overlooking the wide and dreary expanse of marshland. A faint streak of light near the horizon was all that could be seen of the sea. No trees or buildings...

JEAN was not quite so silent at dinner that night. Colonel Douglas told such entertaining stories, and deferred so often to her, that she surprised her grandfather by expressing...

IT was a bright spring afternoon in town. Colonel Douglas was wending his way from his club in Pall Mall to his rooms in a quiet street off Piccadilly. He was due at his sister'...

THE expected interview did not come off. Jean saw her grandfather only at meal-times, and then he was coldly distant and polite to her. She wondered her escapade had been treate...

IT was five o'clock in the afternoon, and the end of April. A cab with luggage was threading its way along Knightsbridge. As it approached Kensington Gardens, and the fresh gree...

WINTER passed. Jean studied hard at her beloved art, spending her leisure time in seeing her various friends and being initiated into Bohemian society. Miss Lorraine did not oft...

IT was a cold grey afternoon, when Jean arrived at her destination. She had travelled with Colonel Douglas as far as Edinburgh, then they parted company and she proceeded alone....

WHEN Jean rose the next morning, she looked out into a bright and sunny world. It was cold and frosty, but the sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun streamed into her window. Sh...

"AND now," said Sunnie, when the singing was over, and all had withdrawn except the doctor and Jean, "now you're going to have tea with me, Miss Desmond. It's to be a Sabbath tr...

META drove Jean over to Mrs. Fergusson's in a small dog-cart. It was a bright crisp afternoon, and Jean enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, and the long stretch of hills and val...

AS Leslie Fergusson drove home that night, his brows were furrowed with thought. In common with other lonely men, he had occasionally a habit of uttering his thoughts aloud. His...

"For now is life a lucid story, And death a rest in Him; And all is bathed in light and glory That once was dark or dim."—Rev. Canon Twells.

"We are rather proud of this old house," she said, as she pointed out to her the ornamental carving round the balustrade of the staircase. "If one had money, how delicious it wo...

IN a few days' time, Jean had adapted herself with great content to the simple farmhouse life. She wandered out of doors a good deal, made sketches of anything that took her fan...

"But why don't you go? Oh, you must. You would like her so much. She is fascinating. I only saw her once, but I longed to see her again. Why shouldn't you go?"

"And I must go alone! Most near and dear, I cannot hope to have thee with me here! I know that thou wilt watch me to the last, Till all sweet ministries of love be past, And we...

THE marriage took place very quietly one bright frosty morning. Only Mrs. Talbot, Jean, and Colonel Douglas's best man were present. It was their wish to have it performed priva...

"What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, Instead of this heart of stone, ice-cold whatever I do; Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all?" —Ch...

This was the contents of a note brought to Jean about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the relief was unspeakable. The following day she inquired at the door, and the old nurs...

JEAN always looked back to that spring in after years, as a very happy bit of her life. She saw a good deal of Mrs. Fergusson, and then her son took her home, and Mrs. Gordon an...

JEAN had need of much patience during the weeks that followed. Her grandfather was irritable and difficult to please, yet he became so accustomed to her services, that he would...

"SURELY it is Jean Desmond? How strange that I should not have run up against you before. I have been in town for six weeks. Are you still studying art?"

THE next afternoon, Barbara took Jean out of her bedroom into the one adjoining it, which was now prettily arranged as a sitting-room. Flowers were on the table, and a dainty li...

"Come, my beloved! we will haste and go To those pale faces of our fellow-men! Our loving hearts, burning with summer fire, Will cast a glow upon their pallidness; Our hands wil...

"How sweet to know The trials which we cannot comprehend Have each their own divinely purposed end. He traineth so For higher learning, ever onward reaching For fuller knowledge...