The Quiet Heart

“Johnnie Lithgow exists no longer.” The words chased the colour from Menie Laurie’s cheek, and drew a pitying exclamation from her lips. Alas, for Johnnie Lithgow’s mourning mot...

The wind sweeps freshly down from among the hills, a busy knave, drying up the gleaming pools along the road as he hurries forward for a moment’s pause and boisterous gossip wit...

Left behind! July Home has dried her eyes at last; and out of many a childish fit of tears and sobbing, suddenly becomes silent like a child, and, standing on the road, looks wi...

A second night upon these untrusted waters found the travellers a little less nervous and timid, but the hearts of all lightened when the early sunshine showed them the green fl...

The sun has struck on Criffel’s sullen shoulder. Look you how it besets him, with a glorious burst of laughter and triumph over his gloom. And now a clown no longer, but some gr...

But Jenny could not be so inhospitable as to shut out with a closed door the applicant for admission, especially as a rapid April shower was just then flashing out of the mornin...

“And what for should I no ken?” exclaimed the hot and impatient Jenny Durward, sole servant, housekeeper, and self-constituted guardian of Mrs. Laurie of Burnside, and her young...

“I wouldna hae come hame as I gaed away, if I had been you, Jenny.” The speaker stands at the door of Jenny’s little byre, looking on, while Jenny milks her favourite cow. “Ye s...

Through the depth and darkness of the summer-night, you can hear Mrs Laurie’s quiet breathing as she lies asleep. With a pain at her heart she lay down, and when she wakes she w...

“They tell me it’s a haill month since it was a’ settled, but I hear naething o’ the house or the plenishing, and no a word o’ what Jenny’s to do. If they’re no wanting me, I’m...

Perhaps next to the pleasure of doing all for those we love best, the joy of receiving all ranks highest. With her heart elate, Menie went in again to the house she had left so...

With the heat and flush of excitement upon his face, Randall Home made his way across the glistening lawn, and through the wet shrubs--for there had been rain--to that corner of...

It is very pleasant here, in the shady drawing-room of Heathbank. Out of doors, these grassy slopes, which Menie Laurie cannot believe to be the heath, are all glowing with suns...

So asked little July Home standing under the shadow of the elm trees, and looking out upon the sea of city smoke, with great St Paul’s looming through its dimness. July did not...

A brilliant company--the very newspapers would say so if they had note of it; distinguished people--except here and there a few who are only wives or sisters of somebody; the la...

But Menie Laurie was by no means satisfied that even simple little July should make comparison so frequent between Randall, her own hero, and the altogether new and sudden eleva...

Mrs Laurie of Burnside sits alone in her sunny parlour. The fire in the grate, quite discountenanced and overborne by the light which pours in from the west window, keeps up a p...

“I’ve been hearing something from Miss Menie, mem,” said Jenny, entering the parlour of Burnside with a determined air, and planting herself firmly behind the door. Jenny was ve...

“You’re to bide away--you’re no to come near this place. Na, you may just fecht; but you’ve nae pith compared to Jenny, for a’ sae auld and thrawn as Jenny has been a’ her days....

“It is two years now since Randall came to London. From Dumfriesshire we send out a great many cadets into the world, Miss Annie; and some one who knew his father found a situat...

“I have been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no r...

“She was no older than my father, though she was his aunt, Jenny,” said Menie Laurie, with humility. Menie was something ashamed and had not yet recovered herself of the first s...

The curtains are drawn again in Miss Annie Laurie’s house of Heathbank--drawn back from the opened windows to let the fresh air and the sunshine in once more to all the rooms. W...

“Randall Home is a very superior young man,” said Mrs Laurie, with quiet approbation. “Do you know, Menie, I had begun to have serious thoughts about permitting your engagement...

After this there fell some very still and quiet days upon Mrs Laurie’s cottage. Every thing went on languidly; there was no heart to the work which Menie touched with dreamy fin...

Something of languor is in this chill morning, as its quiet footstep steals upon the path of the exhausted storm--something worn out and heavy are Menie’s eyes, as she closes th...

“The man’s right--they’ll hae strayed in on the moss. Oh, my bairns! my bairns!” cried the distressed mother into the night. “And Patie was telling, nae farther gane than yestre...

Another long pause, and then July startled him with a burst of tears. “She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside,” repeated Menie’s little friend, with timid sobs,...

The sun is dipping low into the burning sea far away, which Criffel’s envious shoulder hides from us; and the last sheaf of rays, like a handful of golden arrows, strikes down i...

“Yes, Menie, I am quite satisfied.” It is Mrs Laurie herself who volunteers this declaration, while Menie, on the little stool at her feet, looks up wistfully, eager to hear, bu...

But this Menie Laurie, rising up from her bed of unrest, when the morning light breaks, cold and real, upon a changed world, has wept out all her child’s tears, and is a woman o...

“No one can doubt that Randall is unhappy; but Randall is not a humble man, Mrs Laurie; he will not woo and plead and supplicate, I am afraid; he will honour only those who hono...

Courage, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek for nought--does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and cloud in vain. Look through the di...

The music is over, the lesson concluded, and July sits timidly before the piano, striking faint notes with one finger, and marvelling greatly how it is possible to extract anyth...

Mrs Laurie sits by the table with her work; but it is still an easy thing to perceive the irritation on Mrs Laurie’s brow; her hand moves with an additional rapidity, her breath...

No one knows; July is out on a ramble in this pleasant heath, where she cannot lose herself; Mrs Laurie has gone out for some private errands of her own. In her first day, Menie...

“It must not be--I cannot permit it,” said Mrs Laurie. “Menie, is this all that your mother deserves at your hands? to take such a step as this without even telling me--without...