The man on the other side

She was sitting by the roadside, watching the workmen lay the foundation for her first cottage. The process interested her enormously. The master mason at intervals paused in hi...

Roger North let himself down into the cane deck-chair by his study window with a sigh of relief. The wonderful weather still held. It had been a hot morning, there were people s...

North did not visit the farm again. He sent Ruth a brief line: “I am better away.” That he made no apology and expressed no thanks gave her the measure of his trust in her and h...

“Just as happy and sound and wholesome as can be,” she said. “I asked you to come because something wonderful—I believe wonderful—has happened. I felt I must tell you at once. A...

Ruth Courthope Seer stood on her own doorstep and was content. She looked across the garden and the four-acre field with the white may hedge boundary. It was all hers. Her eyes...

Mrs. North’s tennis party pursued its usual successful career in the brilliant sunshine, which, as Mr. Fothersley remembered, always favoured her. Fred Riversley had brought an...

“Yes, I am quite satisfied with things on the whole,” said Lady Condor. “Dear Roger, you need not snort. Of course _you_ are a pessimist, so nice! One of the lucky people who ne...

It was a few days later that Mr. Fothersley, as was his frequent custom, emerged from his front door at eleven o’clock, on his way to the post. In his left hand he carried a she...

Ruth Seer’s father had been a clergyman of the Church of England, and had spent a short life in doing, in the eyes of his family—a widowed mother and an elderly sister—incredibl...

“My dear Roger,” said Mrs. North, with that peculiar guinea-hen quality in her voice which it was her privilege and pleasure to keep especially for her husband, “have you nothin...

Thorpe was rich with the autumn yield before Violet Riversley claimed Ruth’s promise. July had been on the whole a wet month, providing however much-needed rain, but the August...

The clouds of a thunderstorm were looming slowly up as Ruth motored home, and soon after she got back a sudden deluge swept over Thorpe. In ten minutes the garden paths were run...