The strange house

It was a still night at the end of September, unusually mild for the time of year, and the boys were just in bed, having left their window thrown wide-open, so that every noise...

Phyllis looked in her face consideringly, and then her eyes met a pair of dark ones opposite—those of a young man seated with a pile of books before him, in the study of which h...

"Yes," answered Gertrude slowly, her voice growing clear and calm again, "yes, I have. I thought it would be good for us all. I shall come back again, God willing. But—if you do...

THE answer from Mrs. Shaddock had come. Gertrude was to go as soon as she could arrange to set off, and Mrs. Ashlyn and the two girls were very busy during the days which elapse...

Then Phyllis! How her large eyes had filled with tears, and how sober her sweet face had looked as she realized for the first time her responsibilities as sole home-daughter!

"We have only had one governess before," said Mollie, "but the boys go to school now, all but Randall, and he's spoilt." She laughed lightly as she led the way down-stairs once...

CONWAY was a tall boy of between fifteen and sixteen, and acknowledged Gertrude's salutation with not over-ceremonious courtesy. He was, however, full of some news he was anxiou...

Conway had got so friendly over his interesting news that he ceased to feel Gertrude quite such a stranger, and now began telling her about their school, to which he, Ned, and H...

Perhaps the children looked a little disappointed. But very soon, when they were all shut in with the curtains drawn and the cheerful lamplight, they drew near to her, and conde...

AT last, the evening came to an end. Daisy departed to bed, Randall came in and looked at her, and sauntered out again, leaving the door open, and Mollie finally came for a few...

"Well, you'll 'have' to," remarked Hugh, "so it is no good boasting. Of course I am different; I go to school, and she's only got to help me with my lessons."

Were all of them going their own way without reference to her? Only speaking to her when they must, only asking her help when they could not possibly do without it?

So the four set out together, Mollie taking the lead, showing Gertrude the beauties of Hampstead Heath, and describing the long walks they sometimes took on Saturdays to Highgat...

"Not nonsense at all," answered the man. "I'm pretty near sick of it. Here's a pretty go I've had this morning. I slipped down, and the things you sent me for flew out of the ba...

THE young people were so full of the overturned basket and its mysterious contents that Randall forgot to tease Hugh as much as usual. And besides, Miss Ashlyn's quiet presence...

"I MUST go to-night," said the woman in a hoarse voice, rising from the chair into which she had sunk ere she had opened that letter which bore such sad tidings.

But when the woman entered that darkened room, she was hardly prepared for the little figure she found propped up in the narrow bed, nor for the sunken cheeks and staring eyes o...

She would have given everything she possessed at that moment to pacify her dying child, and yet the promise he wanted of her was one she thought she could not give.

Otto smiled slightly. He looked worn, and after the first flush caused by his brisk walk into Camptown had subsided, he seemed to become paler than his observant sister had ever...

Hugh put his hand upon the object of their dispute, to protect it from further molestation, while Randall, with a sudden movement, caught it from under his brother's hand, and t...

"I am going to put a stop to this deception," he said to the nurse. "If he had said boldly that he had done it and was sorry, I would have excused him, but to make it worse by a...

"THERE is a lady down-stairs waiting to see you, Miss Ashlyn," said Mollie, putting her head in at the door of the schoolroom one morning, and then withdrawing it without waitin...

"I THOUGHT—I hoped," sobbed poor Rose, "that—at last—my waiting time was over, and I—might be going to find my little Lester—if it were God's will."

THE autumn afternoon was closing in, and but that Gertrude had noticed some men filling in a new-made grave as she went down, she would have feared that she might find the gates...

She laid a tender hand on her head, and stroked her hair softly, wondering at herself that she could, and yet feeling an overwhelming pity in her heart. Was not she a sinner too...

"I did everything I could think of. I gave him a warm bath—I poured out prayers and tears—I did everything to bring him back, but to no avail.

"Dear miss," she said at last, "why do you cry? You, at any rate, ought to be very glad, for you have brought me, by your great kindness, what is worth the whole world to me! Wh...

ON they drove, till the cab, as directed by the woman, turned up one of the openings leading from the main road, and at length stopped at the gate of a house, just as Gertrude h...

Left with her sister by the kind thought of their hostess, Gertrude tried hard to recover her firmness. To have such a joyful piece of news in her possession as that little Lest...

She had been bending over her child examining his thin little limbs, seemingly trying to reconcile facts which were so contrary to her remembrance; apparently the joy of having...

But Rose's face was an answer, while Gertrude said, in a low, broken voice, which they would hardly have known to be hers, "We have got the shadow of what he was."

"I am afraid he is very ill, dear?" she asked appealingly. "His feet are so thin, and his hands—and so he is all over; nothing is the same but his eyes and his hair, and even hi...

Gertrude saw that now her sister was beginning to realize what in her joy at having her child again she had not noticed. But except for a little firm-set look about her sweet li...

IT seemed a long morning to all concerned, if the truth must be told, to all at any rate but Mrs. Leigh, who found absorbing employment in ministering to the wants of her darling.

WHILE Gertrude was away, Mrs. Leigh was surrounded by her audience of young people, who did not know how time passed in their interest in the beautiful young mother and her litt...

BY the time the cab arrived at Hampstead, Fritz knew the extent of his grief—knew that his only son would not be able to welcome his father or respond to his love. Otto would no...

The whole household could think of nothing else, and now Randall's dainty clothes, which he had grown out of a year or two back, were brought out, and Lester was taken from the...

"I will not tell you till we get out of these noisy streets," said Otto, "but I feel as if I had so many things to say, that I hardly know where to begin!"

"No—you were deeply meditating, and did not look up. Do not worry yourself, he'll be all right. Boys don't get run off with every—" He stopped short. He had touched too near hom...

THE trains were crowded, so that in the bustle of getting a seat at all, Otto found himself almost pushed by the guard into a carriage where were Gertrude, Hugh, and Daisy, whil...

WHEN they entered, Randall was already in his mother's arms, and Mrs. Shaddock was pouring out questions and condolences as fast as she could speak. Her 'at home' day had come t...

EARLY the next morning Gertrude was up, and was bending over her Bible to get refreshment before the day's work began. She dreaded what it might bring to her, for she had seen e...

"It is one of her heart attacks," said Mollie in a reproachful tone to Gertrude. "That is how she always is when she has any excitement or alarm. She will be ill for days, I exp...

"At last I can talk to you!" he exclaimed when they were seated. "Gertrude! I have accepted Dr. Blank's offer, and I am to go abroad for a year with his patient!"

"WE only wanted to see you before we went home," said Rose, when Gertrude, having taken off her hat, had settled herself into one of the luxurious arm-chairs, with Lester on her...

She heard Conway's voice speaking in a hushed tone on the stairs, she saw Mollie's skirts at the corner, and heard her reply In the same awed way, and then both turned and saw h...

"It was like this, miss. There was a doctor's carriage going up and down for ever so long this afternoon, and I watched it till I felt nearly frantic. Then I thought, dear miss,...

"I have seen Conway, and he has explained all about it," he said in a low tone. "And now nurse says the greatest thing is to get him out of the house as quickly as possible—beca...

He and she had decided that no communication whatever must pass from her to him, because of the nature of the illness from which Randall was suffering, as well as the nature of...

MRS. SWIFT was sitting with Randall one morning while Gertrude went out for the constitutional which the doctor insisted on, and he had been chatting to her about all his affair...

AFTER that, Randall quickly recovered, and very soon was running about the Strange House, and even walking in Mr. Swift's well-kept garden, where Mr. Swift himself walked slowly...

"Never mind, Phyllis," said Rose, who was seated by her, "you will have to be a little 'country cousin' for a few days. When you go back to Lanriffe, you will be 'the London you...