The Story Book Girls

In a pink and white bedroom where two beds, Elma's and Betty's, seemed the only pink and white things unspotted by multitudinous photographs, Elma Leighton sought sanctuary. Pur...

Miss Annie lived with her sister in a charming verandahed house, hidden in wisteria and clematis, and everything was delightful in connection with the two sisters except the ill...

Jean sat in a crinkled heap on her bedroom floor, and pulled bad-temperedly with a wire comb at straight unruly hair. It had always annoyed Mabel that Jean should use a wire com...

There was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after their confidences, and everybody seeme...

First, they called very early in the afternoon, just when Betty, with her arms full of matting for her rabbits, rushed out at the front door. She nearly ran into them. The matti...

This was Mr. Leighton's idea, and it found rapturous approval in the ranks of the family, and immediate rebellion in the heart of Mrs. Leighton. It was her one obstinacy that sh...

By itself an occurrence like this would have been unnerving enough. Visitors on the afternoon of a party, and such visitors! But that the Leightons should all be more or less in...

Nobody knew how anybody got dressed for the party, and certainly nobody took any dinner to speak of. It was laid in the morning-room, and Mr. Leighton said throughout that royst...

"Oh, Miss Grace, she has eyes like yours and listens most interrogatively," said Elma in the greatest alarm. The fear that Miss Grace might be offended only now assailed her.

But by that time Elma's soul had soared far above the heights or depths of triumph or pettiness in connection with the sojourn of Miss Grace. Life had been moving swiftly and wo...

Guests at the Leightons' were divided into two classes. There were those who were friends of Mr. Leighton, and who therefore were interested in art, or literature, or science, o...

That Miss Meredith should turn in a moment from being freezingly uninterested in the Professor's wife, to being more friendly than any one else, seemed from one point of view ve...

Mr. Leighton was very sympathetic over the burglar. He heard of the occurrence in two ways, first in the fiery excited recital of Jean, and then in confidence from Elma. Mrs. Le...

Mabel was twenty-one when her cousin Isobel Leighton came to make her home at the White House. Isobel's mother had died ten years before, and since the more recent death of her...

The 4.50 train hammered and pounded in a jerkily driven manner to Ridgetown. It was hot, and most of the windows lay open in the endeavour to catch any air that had escaped bein...

It seemed to Mabel that Isobel's proposals, kindly worded and prettily mentioned, were always impossible of acceptance. She did nothing but refuse these overtures to friendship...

"I don't mind telling you that I felt very miserable when I got to my rooms," she said among other things. "I drove here all right, and the door was opened by a servant who didn...

Elma in the privacy of her best confidences had called Isobel a bounder. The iniquity, viewed even only in the light of a discourtesy, alarmed her, and made her more than anythi...

Mabel had discovered that a woman with a mission hasn't such a bad time of it. She set out on her journey to Jean without one of her usual misgivings. It was jolly to think that...

Jean owed a great debt to Isobel for having told her of Slavska, and acknowledged it extravagantly in every letter. Now there was the difficulty of finding a piano teacher; but...

Adelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily's. What had always remained diffi...

The night at Lady Emily's was by no means a first step into a new and fashionable world. Mabel and Jean never doubted for a moment that they were anything but spectators of that...

Miss Meredith took the news of her brother's engagement in a dumb manner. An explosion of wrath would have helped every one. Robin might have appeared aggrieved, and had somethi...

Elma lay on her bed in the pink and white room. The first warm spring sunshine in vain tried to find an opening to filter through partly closed shutter and blinds. A nurse in gr...

Mabel and Jean had been successfully deceived up to a certain point in regard to Elma's illness. They were told the facts when the danger was past. It was made clear to them the...

"We have been so anxious about Elma, who now however is picking up. But we have the saddest news of Miss Annie. It seems as though she would not live more than a day or two. If...

Mr. Leighton departed from his first feelings of hurry where Mabel and Jean were concerned, and delayed their home coming till Elma was in a condition not to be retarded by any...

The Leighton's had been writing off the invitations for the wedding, and Elma was in her room with Adelaide Maud. This had been converted into a sitting-room so long as Elma rem...

"To show one he couldn't have, more likely," said Mrs. Leighton shortly. She herself could not reconcile it to her ideas of what should have been. Mr. Leighton was adamant on th...

The organ in the Ridgetown church pealed in a stately manner the wedding music from _Lohengrin_. Isobel, the bride, moved with exactitude slowly down the aisle with her three br...