The Rosery Folk

"Speak gently! how can a man speak gently? The things are of no value, but it worries me, I've taken such pains with them, through the cold weather, to bring them on."

Little more than an hour before his words with the old gardener, Sir James was in his dingy office in Leadenhall Street, where, young as he was, through succession to his father...

"Have you brought my magazines, William?" said a bright-faced, eager girl, with no slight pretensions to good looks, as she stood there in her neat, dark, closely fitting dress...

To "unfig," with Sir James Scarlett, meant to thoroughly change his London garments for an easy suit of flannels, such as he used for boating and gardening, the latter pursuit b...

The dinner at the Rosery was all that was pleasant and desirable, saving that Doctor Scales felt rather disappointed in having to take in Aunt Sophia. He was not a ladies' man,...

"So it is, Jack, and I suppose I'm a monomaniac. Fellows at the club laugh at me. They say, here you are--with plenty of money, which is true; heaps of brains--which is not; a t...

Arthur Prayle looked at his glossy black garments, and then, bowing his head, gravely said, "Yes, perhaps I shall be there," and he raised his book and went on down the garden.

"That's what I like in the country," said Jack Scales to himself, as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled down one of the garden paths. "Humph! Five o'clock, and pe...

The encounter completely spoiled the doctor's walk, and he turned back sooner than he had intended, meeting Aunt Sophia and Naomi Raleigh in the garden, and accompanying them in...

"There you are. Sit down at once. Never stand up in a boat.--Is the cushion all right? That's the way.--Now, Naomi.--Hand her in, Jack.-- Come along, Kitty."

The thrust delivered by Scarlett before the breaking of the oar, aided by the impetus given by his feet as he fell, sent the boat back into the rapid stream beyond the eddy; and...

"Yes," said Scales excitedly, as he bent over his patient, whom he had placed upon the floor of the study, after ordering fresh medical help to be fetched at once--"yes--there i...

Such an accident could not occur without the news spreading pretty quickly; and in the course of the morning several of the neighbours drove over to make inquiries, the trouble...

The next day and next, Sir James Scarlett seemed to be better. He was pale and suffering from the shock, speaking gravely to all about him, but evidently trying to make the visi...

Two months of the life of John Scales passed away, during which he had three opportunities of gaining good additions to his practice, but in each case he set himself so thorough...

Brother William went very regularly to the Scarletts, and took Fanny's magazines, handing them to her always with an air of disgust, which resulted in their being snatched angri...

Mr Fred. Saxby stopped in front of the Royal Exchange one morning to buy a rose, and spent some time in selecting it. Red ones would not do; yellow he despised. He wanted a deli...

"Come, old fellow; I think you are better now," said the doctor, as he took Scarlett's arm and walked with him down the garden. They had just been standing upon the lawn, where,...

A wonderful stillness seemed to have fallen, and not even a bird twittered or uttered a note in the hot midsummer sunshine. Once from the distance came the low soft murmur of th...

"Mr Saxby wants to speak to you, ma'am," said Fanny; and Aunt Sophia jumped up in a pet. "What does he want now? This is four times he has been down this month. Where is he?"

Doctor Scales injured John Monnick's beautiful turf, that he had been at such trouble to make grow under the big mulberry tree, by suddenly screwing round his garden-seat, to st...

"I hate him, and I'll humble him yet!" said Lady Martlett, with her eyes flashing, as she saw Jack Scales coming along the path towards the drawing-room window. "How dares he as...

"My back's a sight better, sir, wi' that stuff you said I was to get, and I thank you kindly for it," said John Monnick, as the doctor seated himself one day close by where the...

"Give you a rose, my dear?" said John Monnick, pausing in his task of thinning out the superabundant growth amongst the swelling grapes. "Well, I don't like to refuse you anythi...

Poor James Scarlett's garden was in fair condition, but far from being at its best. It was well attended to, but the guiding spirit was to some extent absent; and as Jack Scales...

"I declare," said Aunt Sophia to herself, "it is quite ridiculous as well as shocking. Here I seem to be set up as the head of a sort of wedding bureau, for everybody seized wit...

It was one of those dark, soft, autumn evenings when the country seems dream-like and delicious. Summer is past, but winter is yet far away; and the year having gone through the...

Doctor Scales left his friend, after sending word by one of the servants that he wished to see Lady Scarlett. The meeting would be very painful, and it was one to be avoided. Co...

There was a deeply interested gathering in one of the large offices of the Waterloo Station, where a clerk in his shirt-sleeves was seated beneath a gas-jet making entries, what...

"When, then--when a man, who is perhaps rather too bluff and tradesman-like in his ways, but who loves very dearly, and is a thoroughly true honest gentleman at heart, asked me...

"This doesn't look professional," said the doctor to himself.--"Go a little more steadily, my man," he said aloud to the groom; and consequently the horse was checked into a dec...