Too Old for Dolls: A Novel

It wanted an hour and a half to lunch time. Mrs. Delarayne appeared to have left "The Fastness," and Lord Henry was alone in the garden, meditating and maturing his plans.

A day or two later,--that is to say on the Saturday before Sir Joseph's evening At Home in honour of Leonetta's homecoming,--Mrs. Delarayne herself gave a dinner party, to which...

The central offices of Bullion and Bullion Ltd. were in Lombard Street. They occupied a large building constructed of ferroconcrete, on each floor of which, except the first, th...

Despite Sir Joseph's very careful reservations in regard to the increase, which unsolicited he had thought fit to make in his chief secretary's salary, Denis, who was perfectly...

Except to Sir Joseph, Mrs. Delarayne had revealed nothing about the nature of her journey to Ashbury to any member of the party at Brineweald. Lord Henry's visit was to be a sur...

In the full-grown schoolgirl, who stands on the threshold of womanhood, we have a creature who, though probably admirably equipped with normal or even supernormal passions, is,...

Lord Henry had made many friends at Brineweald, but neither was Denis Malster quite alone. Miss Mallowcoid had not taken kindly to the patronage Lord Henry had thought fit to ex...

There are many people who would have considered Mrs. Delarayne a selfish mother. Despite the fact that no man, woman, or child has ever yet been known to perform an unselfish ac...

There was a dance at Brineweald that evening, and everybody who was anybody in the neighbourhood had been invited. The Vicar's family, the doctor's children, the Swynnertons fro...

Mrs. Delarayne, hatless and tearful with impatience, was at the gate waiting for the sound that was to announce the arrival of Lord Henry. Inside Cleopatra had just recovered fr...

On a vast Chesterfield, every unoccupied square inch of which seemed to bulge with indignant pride, Mrs. Delarayne reclined in picturesque repose. Her small feet, looking if pos...

Sir Joseph, having risen from his post-prandial snooze and found Mrs. Delarayne, had led that lady to the drawing-room, and was now engaged in trying to convince her of the gene...

"So inexhaustibly rich is the sun that even when it goes down it pours its gold into the very depths of the sea; and then even the poorest boatman rows with golden oars."

On being dismissed from her mother's presence, Cleopatra did not go as she had been commanded to her mirror in order to remove the little shadow of down that adorned her upper l...

It was lunch-time on the morning of the ninth day of their holiday. Mrs. Delarayne, in the garden of "The Fastness," was stretched on her _chaise-longue_ reading. Beside her Cle...

Lord Henry could have flown amid the foliage of the trees, he could have leaped from branch to branch,--aye, he could have pranced from the tip of each leaf of bracken on his wa...

Lord Henry felt he had done his best for England, and now his mind turned covetously towards a country and a clime where his best promised to yield richer and better fruit. He h...

"Simply one of those strange accidents which go to determine the course of our lives," he observed calmly. "By accidentally throwing a tennis ball further than he intended, Sir...

Leonetta was home again and the old house in Kensington felt the change acutely. The stairs creaked in a manner almost indignant; doors which for months had disported themselves...