The Marriage of Elinor

In the morning John accompanied Elinor to church. Mrs. Dennistoun had found an excuse for not going, which I am sorry to say was a way she had. She expressed (and felt) much sor...

Philip had never been in a court of law before. I am almost as ignorant as he was, yet I cannot imagine anything more deeply interesting than to find one's self suddenly one of...

The drawing-room of the cottage was large and low, and had that _faux air_ of being old-fashioned which is dear to the hearts of superior people generally. Mrs. Dennistoun and h...

Time went on quickly enough amid all these preparations and the little attendant excitements of letters, congratulations, and presents which came in on every side. Elinor compla...

Mrs. Dennistoun had a great deal to say about herself and the motives which had at the last been too much for her, which had forced her to come after her children at a moment's...

It was while this conversation was going on that John Tatham, anxious and troubled about many things, knocked at the door in Ebury Street. He was anxious to know how the explana...

This day in the copse was one that Elinor never forgot. At the moment it seemed to her the most blissful period of all her life. There had been times in which she had longed tha...

The morning of a wedding-day is a flying and precarious moment which seems at once as if it never would end, and as if it were a hurried preliminary interval in which the necess...

"Well," said Compton, placing himself beside her, "here you are, Nell; kind of the old lady to bring me, wasn't it? I should never have found you out by myself."

"Funny old poop!" said Compton. "And that is your Rector, Nell. I shall tell Dick there's rare fun to be had in that house: but not for me. I know what I shall be thinking of al...

It was a blustering afternoon when John, with his bag in his hand, set out from the station at Hurrymere for Mrs. Dennistoun's cottage. Why that station should have had "mere" i...

Phil Compton went off next morning by an early train, having in the meanwhile improved the impression of him left upon the family in general, and specially upon Mrs. Dennistoun,...

"Look at that, Elinor," said Mrs. Dennistoun, next day, when she had read, twice over, a letter, large and emblazoned with a very big monogram, which Elinor, well perceiving fro...

Thus Elinor Dennistoun disappeared from Windyhill and was no more seen. There are many ways in which a marriage is almost like a death, especially when the marriage is that of a...

Mrs. Dennistoun did not go up to town. There are some women who would have done so, seeing the other side of the subject--at all hazards; and perhaps they would have been right-...

John Tatham, barrister-at-law, received one summer morning as he sat at breakfast the following letter. It was written in what was once known distinctively as a lady's hand, in...

The days in the cottage were full of excitement and of occupation during the blazing August weather, not so much indeed as is common in many houses in which the expectant brideg...

The next winter was more dreary still and solitary than the first at Windyhill. The first had been, though it looked so long and dreary as it passed, full of hope of the coming...

The Rector came in with his smiling and rosy face. He was, as many of his parishioners thought, a picture of a country clergyman. Such a healthy colour, as clear as a girl's, li...

Fortune was favourable to Elinor that day. At the Tower, where she duly went over everything that was to be seen with Pippo, conscious all the time of his keen observance of her...

Elinor made much of her boy during that day and the following days, to take away the sense of disappointment which even after the first great mortification was got over still ha...

It cannot be said that this evening at the Cottage was an agreeable one. To think that Elinor should be there, and yet that there should be so little pleasure in the fact that t...

John went down to Windyhill that evening. His appearance alarmed the little household more than words could say. As he was admitted at once by the servants, delighted to see him...

Philip did not know how long he remained, almost paralysed, in the court, dazed in his mind, incapable of movement. He was in the centre of a long row of people, and to make his...

The next time that John's presence was required at the cottage was for the signing of the very simple settlements; which, as there was nothing or next to nothing in the power of...

John left the Cottage next morning with the full conduct of the affairs of the family placed in his hands. The ladies were both a little doubtful if his plan was the best--they...

John Tatham shovelled his papers into his portfolio, and shut it up with a snap of embarrassment, a sort of confession of weakness. He pushed back his chair with the same sharpn...

There passed after this a number of years of which I can make no record. The ladies remained at Lakeside, seldom moving. When they took a holiday now and then, it was more for t...

It cost Mrs. Dennistoun a struggle to yield to her daughter and her daughter's husband, and with her eyes open and no delusion on the subject to throw away her two thousand poun...

It was Mrs. Dennistoun whose letter brought John Tatham such dismay. It was dated Lakeside, Waterdale, Penrith--an address with which he had no associations whatever, and which...

As a matter of fact, Elinor did not go to the Cottage for the fresh air or anything else. She made one hurried run in the afternoon to bid her mother good-by, alone, which was n...

It was about the 10th of June when Mrs. Dennistoun left London. She had been in town for about five weeks, which looked like as many months, and it was with a mingled sense of r...

It was not till nearly three weeks after this that John received another brief dispatch. "At home: come and see us." He had indeed got a short letter or two in the interval, say...

Thus there came a sort of settling down and composure of affairs. Phil Compton and all belonging to him disappeared from the scene, and Elinor returned to all the habits of her...

It happened thus that it was not till the second autumn after the settlement of the ladies in Waterdale, when all the questions had died out, and there was no more talk of them,...

The weather was fine, which was by no means always a certainty at Waterdale, and Elinor had become a great pedestrian, and was ready to accompany John in his walks, which were l...

It is needless to say that the years which developed Elinor's child into a youth on the verge of manhood, had not passed by the others of the family without full evidence of its...

When Elinor received the official document which had so extraordinary an effect upon her life, and overturned in a moment all the fabric of domestic quiet and security which she...

A few days after this Philip Compton came in, in the afternoon, to the little room down-stairs which Mrs. Dennistoun had made into a sitting-room for herself. Elinor had gone ou...

I will not say that Philip's sleep was broken by this question, but it undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he jumped out of bed very late for br...

It cannot be said that Uncle John was very happy with Philip, but that was a thing the others did not take into account. John Tatham was doing for the boy as much as a man could...

I do not mean to assert that John Tatham had not seen Lady Mariamne during these twenty years, or that her changed appearance burst upon him with anything like a shock. In socie...

Things relapsed into quietness for some time after that combination which seemed to be directed against John's peace of mind. If I said that it is not unusual for the current of...

John Tatham had in vain attempted to persuade Elinor to come to his house, to dine there in comfort--he was going out himself--so that at least in this time of excitement and tr...

The drawing-room after dinner always looked cheerful. Perhaps the fact that it was a sort of little oasis in the desert, and that the light from those windows shone into three c...

Elinor had not been three days gone, indeed her mother had but just received a hurried note announcing her arrival in London, when as she sat alone in the house which had become...

The days of the last week hurried along like the grains of sand out of an hour-glass when they are nearly gone. It is true that almost everything was done--a few little bits of...

room but the little drop of ashes from the fire, the sudden burst of a little gas-flame from the coals, the rustle of Elinor's arm as it moved. The cat sat with her tail curled...

I will not confuse the reader with a description of all Elinor's thoughts during the slow progress of that afternoon and evening, which were as the slow passing of a year to her...