The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes

‘Have you talked it over with her?’ said Mr. Ferrars, as his little slender wife met him under the beeches that made an avenue of the lane leading to Fairmead vicarage.

The equinoctial sun had long set, and the blue haze of March east wind had deepened into twilight and darkness when Albinia Kendal found herself driving down the steep hilly str...

Fog greeted Mrs. Kendal’s eyes as she rose, and she resolved to make an attack on the pond without loss of time. But Mr. Kendal was absorbed nearly all breakfast-time in a lette...

There are some characters so constituted, that of them the old proverb, that Love is blind, is perfectly true; they can see no imperfection in the mind or body of those dear to...

Albinia needed patience to keep alive hope and energy, for a sore disappointment awaited her. Whatever had been her annoyances with the girls, she had always been on happy and c...

The Christmas holidays did indeed put an end to the walks to meet Gilbert, but only so as to make Albinia feel responsible for him all day long, and uneasy whenever he was not a...

He said no more, for the drawing-room door was moving to and fro, as if uneasy on the hinges, and as he made a step towards it, it disclosed a lady with black eyes and pinched f...

Yes! Albinia was excessively happy. Her naturally high spirits were enhanced by the enjoyment of recovery, and reaction, from her former depression. Since the great stroke of th...

Winifred Ferrars was surprised by Mr. Kendal’s walking into her garden, with a perturbed countenance, begging her to help him to make out what could be the meaning of a note whi...

It was ‘a green Yule,’ a Christmas like an April day, and even the lengthening days and strengthening cold of January attaining to nothing more than three slight hoar-frosts, ea...

The summer had just begun, when notice was given that a Confirmation would take place in the autumn; and Lucy’s name was one of the first sent in to Mr. Dusautoy. His plan was t...

Sophy, who was well aware that a walk with him was the greatest and rarest treat to his wife, gave gracious permission, and in a few minutes they were walking by the bright cana...

Old Mr. Pringle never stirred beyond his parlour, and was invisible to every one, except his housekeeper and doctor, but his tall, square, curtained pew was jealously locked up,...

Maurice Ferrars was a born architect, with such a love of brick and mortar, that it was meritorious in him not to have overbuilt Fairmead parsonage. With the sense of giving him...

Colonel Bury was the most open-hearted old bachelor in the country. His imagination never could conceive the possibility of everybody not being glad to meet everybody, his house...

A blushing face was raised with such an expression of contrite timidity, that Albinia felt sure that the poor little Frenchwoman had recovered from her brief intoxication, and w...

Planets hostile to the tender passion must have been in the ascendant, for the result of Captain Ferrars’s pursuit of his brother to Italy was the wholesome certainty that his o...

It was a beautiful July afternoon, the air musical with midsummer hum, the flowers basking in the sunshine, the turf cool and green in the shade, and the breeze redolent of inde...

There was a war of supremacy in the Kendal household. Albinia and her son were Greek to Greek, and if physical force were on her side, her own tenderness was against her. As to...

If the end of the vacation were a relief on Lucy’s account, Albinia would gladly have lengthened it on Gilbert’s. Letters from his tutor had disquieted his father; there had bee...

‘I had almost written to ask your pardon,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, as Albinia entered her drawing-room on the afternoon following. ‘I should like by way of experiment to know what _...

‘Don’t call him my uncle. I wish I’d never set eyes on his wooden old face, to put the family name and honour in the power of such as he.’

‘We had quite given you up,’ Gilbert was saying. ‘The fire is in the library,’ he added, as Mr. Kendal was opening the drawing-room door, and closing it in haste at the sight of...

‘Suppose I had,’ he said, rather quaintly; then, as he saw her hands held up, ‘conditionally, you understand, entirely conditionally. What could I do, when Dusautoy entreated me...

Exulting peals rang out from the Bayford tower, and as Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy alighted from their carriage at Willow Lawn, the cry of the vicar and of the assembled hou...

The day after Mr. Kendal’s departure, Mrs. Meadows had another attack, but a fortnight still passed before the long long task was over and the weary spirit set free. There had b...

Had Sophia’s wishes been consulted, she would have preferred nursing her sorrows at home; but no choice had been left, and at the vicarage the fatherly kindness of Mr. Dusautoy,...

The Family Office had been asked to receive the whole party on their return. Mr. Kendal had business in London, and could not bear to part with the colonel till he had seen him...

Not long afterwards, Ulick O’More was summoned to Bristol, where his uncle had become suddenly worse; but he had only reached Hadminster when a telegraph met him with the news o...

Miss Goldsmith went to spend Christmas with an old friend, leaving Ulick more liberty than he had enjoyed for a long time. He used it a good deal at Willow Lawn, and was there o...

The Lake of Lucerne lay blue and dark in the shade of the mountains, on whose summits the evening sunshine was fast mounting, peak after peak falling into purple shadow.