Two Years Ago, Volume I

Now, to tell my story--if not as it ought to be told, at least as I can tell it,--I must go back sixteen years,--to the days when Whitbury boasted of forty coaches per diem, ins...

I must now, if I am to bring you to "Two years ago," and to my story, as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the good old West Country, and set you down at the back of...

Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is "like a house in a story;"--a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house of useless long passages, useless turr...

About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr. Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every lion, poor as well as rich,--in count...

So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and became a general favourite in the town. Heale had no reason to complain of boarding him; for he had dinner and supper...

the rocks--what if they tear it?--it leaps them nevertheless, and goes laughing on its way. Let me go thus, for weal or woe! And if I sleep awhile, let it be like the brook, ben...

"This child's head is dreadfully hot; and how yellow he does look!" says Mrs. Vavasour, fussing about in her little nursery. "Oh, Clara, what shall I do? I really dare not give...

This chapter shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are wont now to astonish and edify their heare...

Whosoever enjoys the sight of an honest man doing his work well, would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next two months. In-doors all the morning, and out of doors...

But what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma and the American, which had prevented Scoutbush from following the example of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a vi...

Elsley Vavasour is sitting one morning in his study, every comfort of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beating the home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts....

"What a coldness this is at my heart!" she said aloud to herself, trying to smile; but she could not: and she sat on the bedside, without taking off her bonnet and shawl, her ha...

We must now return to Elsley, who had walked home in a state of mind truly pitiable. He had been flattering his soul with the hope that Thurnall did not know him; that his beard...

Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call unto himself a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair to the wilds of Brompton, and request to...

Elsley went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, a...

Did you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which grew higher and higher as you climbed; and scramble through passages which changed perpetually before you, and up and d...