The Quality of Mercy

Northwick's man met him at the station with the cutter. The train was a little late, and Elbridge was a little early; after a few moments of formal waiting, he began to walk the...

The local opinion scarcely did justice to old Northwick's imperfect discharge of a father's duties; his critics could not have realized how much some capacities, if not tastes,...

The question was not settled even in the final retrospect, when it appeared that at the very moment that Northwick showed himself mindful of the company's interests on those min...

"Why, why did you say it was business at all, then?" The girl put her arms round her father's neck and let her head-scarf fall on the rug a little way from her cloak and her arc...

"It'll be very provoking," she said, forecasting the minor trouble of the greater trouble's failure. "Everybody will wonder if it isn't father, and we shall have to tell them it...

"Why the thing has to come out. You can keep happiness a secret, but sorrow and shame have to come out--I don't know why, but they do. Then, when they come out, we feel as if th...

"Me. I can get into Boston in time for that half-past-seven train, and I can do all the things when I get to Wellwater that you couldn't do. Come; be reasonable! You must see th...

"I like it all times of the year," she answered. "We've all been enjoying the winter so much; it's the first we've spent here for a long time." She felt a strange pleasure in sa...

"I knew you wanted me to stay, papa, to see how beautifully you could do it; and you _did_ do it beautifully. It was magnificent--perhaps _too_ magnificent." She began to laugh...

Maxwell had come with nerves steeled to bear the rejection of his article entire, but he was not prepared to suffer the erasure of all his pet phrases and favorite sentences, so...

The sorrow that turned to shame in other eyes remained sorrow to Northwick's daughters. When their father did not come back, or make any sign of being anywhere in life, they rev...

"I'm not prepared to quarrel with it on that account," said Matt, with the philosophical serenity which might easily be mistaken for irony in him. "The book we get our religion...

But she clung to Putney, and relied upon him in everything, not so much because she implicitly trusted him, as because she knew no one else to trust. The kindness that Mr. Hilar...

Northwick's unreasoned gladness grew with each impression of the beauty and novelty. It quickened associations of his earliest days, and of the winter among his native hills. He...

"Good morning, sir!" cried the Canadian. "I am glad to see you! Let me 'elp you hout, sir. Well, it is a pleasure to speak a little English with some one! The English close hup...

But as he regained his health, he began to feel that this was a rash and foolish promise: he thought he saw a better way out of his unhappiness. It appeared a misfortune once mo...

"Well, I'm not sure of that," said Hilary. "In this case it seems to have served her own turn. It's enabled her simply and honestly to deny the fact that her father ever did any...

That day Matt Hilary came over from his farm to see Wade, whom he found as before, in his study at the church, and disposed to talk over Northwick's letter. "It's a miserable af...

"Ah, the doctor!" cried Suzette. "What can the doctor do for troubles like ours?" She put up her hands to her face, and bowed herself on them, and sobbed, with the first tears s...

Part of Matt Hilary's protest against the status in which he found himself a swell was to wash his face for dinner in a tin basin on the back porch, like the farm-hands. When he...

Matt felt that he need now no longer practise those reserves in speaking to Sue of her father, which he had observed so painfully hitherto. Neither did she shrink from the fact...

Matt had tried to imagine himself saying this to his mother, and the effect it would have, ever since he had left Suzette's absorbing presence; all through his talk with Putney,...

"I felt that I ought to suggest that to Matt; though, really, when it comes to the practical side of the matter, people wouldn't care much what her father had been--that is, soc...

"Do it here as well as anywhere," said Markham, breaking his cigar-ash off. But Pinney's alluring confidence, and his simple-hearted acknowledgment of his lack of perspicacity h...

Northwick said he thought it was, and after he said that, he sighed so deeply that Pinney said, "Oh, I beg your pardon." He had, in fact, lost the sense of Northwick's situation...

Northwick shook his head. "It's not the same. I can't get used to it; their business methods are different. I couldn't put my capital into any of their enterprises. I've looked...

Pinney showed himself only less devoted to Northwick than to his own wife and child. His walks and talks were all with him; and as the baby got better he gave himself more and m...

Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions of the country that has appeared, taken all in all.... A book most charming--a book that no American can fail to...