The Real Lady Hilda: A Sketch

It was indeed a most lamentable truth that I was not as accomplished as most of the girls of my age. I could not paint or play the violin, I had no knowledge of the German langu...

Emma’s prophecy came true for once—in fact, as far as I know, it was the solitary occasion on which her vivid daydreams were realized. We were overwhelmed with civilities and in...

We passed into a large, oak-paneled hall, and then up a wide, shallow staircase, carpeted with soft crimson carpet, and lined with large oil paintings, chiefly portraits. At the...

Sir Fulke, who appeared to be expecting us, was a stout, bald gentleman, with a pair of hard brown eyes and a fixed smile. He bowed profoundly over his stiff shirt-front, as we...

All that miserable Christmas night Emma was desperately ill. The little lodging-house was in an uproar, and Mrs. Gabb was unmistakably annoyed at the prospect of having an inval...

A few days before Christmas, Emma and I were taking a constitutional (a walk for duty, not for pleasure) between two bare uninteresting hedges, about a mile from Stonebrook. We...

After waiting twenty minutes in semidarkness (poor people must exercise patience), the lamp—welcome herald of tea—was carried in by Mrs. Gabb, whose expressive countenance disti...

“So you’ll be going this day week?” remarked Mrs. Gabb, as she bustled in with the lamp. “And I’m sure I can’t wonder; it’s lonely-like for you being here in this room by yourse...

Surely, there is no more melancholy task than collecting and putting away the belongings of the dead! Even such little everyday articles as gloves, pens, books, can inflict many...

I let myself in with a latchkey—Mr. Gabb’s own particular key—and crept stealthily up-stairs, hoping that Emma was asleep, and that I could thus sneak past her door unheard; but...

“Too early for the lamp, I suppose, and yet too dark to read a line.” And my stepmother closed her novel, with an impatient snap, as she added, “This is the worst of these horri...

We were met at Chalgrove station by the coroneted carriage and high-stepping horses, as foreseen by Miss Skuce’s eager imagination. My scanty, shabby baggage was entirely the af...

Emma’s bedroom was immediately beneath mine, and during the night I heard her coughing repeatedly, a nasty little short hacking cough. I went to her early in the morning, in ord...

It would be a new experience for me to take the lead, to be manager, financier, adviser. When I had restored Emma, after some difficulty, and left her comparatively composed—and...

On Christmas morning, Emma complained of a cold and a sharp pain in her chest. She did not venture to church, as it was a bitterly bleak day, but nursed herself up for the eveni...