Thelma

Who can adequately describe the thrilling excitement attending an aristocratic "crush,"--an extensive, sweeping-off-of-old-cores "at home,"--that scene of bewildering confusion...

"I heed not custom, creed, nor law; I care for nothing that ever I saw-- I terribly laugh with an oath and sneer, When I think that the hour of Death draws near!"

The next morning dawned, cold and dismal. A dense yellow fog hung over the metropolis like a pall--the street lamps were lighted, but their flare scarcely illumined the thorough...

"Il n'y a personne qui ait eu autant a souffrir a votre sujet que moi depuis ma naissance! aussi je vous supplie a deux genoux et au nom de Dien, d'avoir pitie de moi!"--_Old Br...

The horror-stricken spectators of the catastrophe stood for a minute inert and speechless,--stupefied by its suddenness and awful rapidity. Then with one accord they hurried dow...

And Lorimer, after uttering this unmeaning exclamation, was silent out of sheer dismay. He stood hesitating and looking in at the door of the Gueldmar's sitting-room, and the al...

As the afternoon lengthened, and the sun lowered his glittering shield towards that part of the horizon where he rested a brief while without setting, the _Eulalie_,--her white...

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day-- We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they-- We, from the fetters of the light unbound, Healed of our wound of living, sh...

And Mrs. Marvelle fixed her glasses more firmly on her small nose, and regarded her husband almost reproachfully. "Don't tell me, Montague, that you've forgotten that scandal ab...

"If thou wert honorable, Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue, not For such an end thou seek'st; as base, as strange. Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far From thy re...

The melancholy days of autumn came on apace, and by-and-by the Manor was deserted. The Bruce-Errington establishment removed again to town, where business, connected with his in...

On the morning of the twenty-fifth of May, Thelma, Lady Bruce-Errington, sat at breakfast with her husband in their sun-shiny morning-room, fragrant with flowers and melodious w...

A fortnight passed. The first excursion in the _Eulalie_ had been followed by others of a similar kind, and Errington's acquaintance with the Gueldmars was fast ripening into a...

After that evening great changes came into Thelma's before peaceful life. She had conquered her enemies, or so it seemed,--society threw down all its barricades and rushed to me...

She roused herself at last. Unclasping her hands, she pushed back her hair from her brows and sighed heavily. Shivering as with intense cold, she rose from the chair she had so...

"O Love! O Love! O Gateway of Delight! Thou porch of peace, thou pageant of the prime Of all God's creatures! I am here to climb Thine upward steps, and daily and by night To ga...

"Hallo, ho!" shouted Gueldmar vociferously, peering back into the shadows of the cavern from whence the figures of his daughter and Errington were seen presently emerging. "Why,...

Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, Baronet, the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many match-making mothers had stood knee-deep in the chilly thou...

"I have led her home, my love, my only friend; There is none like her, none! And never yet so warmly ran my blood, And sweetly on and on, Calming itself to the long-wished-for e...

"Bury me not when I am dead-- Lay me not down in a dusty bed; I could not bear the life down there, With the wet worms crawling about my hair!" ERIC MACKAY.

"Why, sir, in the universal game of double-dealing, shall not the cleverest tricksters play each other false by haphazard, and so betray their closest secrets, to their own and...

"The body is the storm; The soul the star beyond it, in the deep Of Nature's calm. And, yonder, on the steep, The Sun of Faith, quiescent, round, and warm!"

Thelma took her friend Lady Winsleigh to her own boudoir, a room which had been the particular pride of Sir Philip's mother. The walls were decorated with panels of blue silk in...

"And Sigurd the Bishop said, 'The old gods are not dead, For the great Thor still reigns, And among the Jarls and Thanes The old witchcraft is spread.'" LONGFELLOW'S _Saga of Ki...

"What of her glass without her? The blank grey There, where the pool is blind of the moon's face-- Her dress without her? The tossed empty space Of cloud-rack whence the moon ha...

Before them, close enough for their outstretched hands to have touched it, was what appeared to be a framed picture, exquisitely painted,--a picture perfect in outline matchless...

Errington and Lorimer pulled away across the Fjord in a silence that lasted for many minutes. Old Gueldmar stood on the edge of his little pier to watch them out of sight. So, t...

Disappointment upon disappointment awaited Errington at Hull. Unfortunately, neither he nor Britta knew of the existence of the good Norwegian innkeeper, Friedhof, who had assis...

The Reverend Charles Dyceworthy sat alone in the small dining-room of his house at Bosekop, finishing a late tea, and disposing of round after round of hot buttered toast with t...

"For my mother's sake, For thine and hers, O Love! I pity take On all poor women. Jesu's will be done, Honor for all, and infamy for none, This side the borders of the burning l...

The next day was very warm and bright, and that pious Lutheran divine, the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, was seriously encumbered by his own surplus flesh material as he wearily...

It was half an hour past midnight. Sir Philip was left in absolute solitude to enjoy his meditative stroll on deck, for the full radiance of light that streamed over the sea and...

"This is positively absurd," murmured Lorimer, in mildly injured tones, seven hours later, as he sat on the edge of his berth, surveying Errington, who, fully dressed, and in th...

Midnight,--without darkness, without stars! Midnight--and the unwearied sun stood, yet visible in the heavens, like a victorious king throned on a dais of royal purple bordered...