West Lawn, and The rector of St. Mark's

“At last, dear old book, repository of all my secret thoughts and feelings, I am free to come to you once more, and talk to you as I can talk to no one else. Daisy is asleep in...

It lacked ten minutes of car-time, and the omnibus-driver was growing impatient and tired of waiting for his passenger, when a noisy group appeared upon the piazza: Mrs. Squire...

“How beautiful it is this summer night, and how softly the moonlight falls upon the quiet street through the maple-trees! On such a night as this one seems to catch a faint glim...

“It seems to me you’ve been gone a hundred million billion years, and you’ve no idea what a forlorn old rat-trap of a plais it is Without You, nor how the Young Ones do rase Kai...

“I was too tired last night to open my trunk, and so have a double duty to perform, that of recording the events of the last two days. Can it be that it is not yet forty-eight h...

“Your package of money and little note, sent by Miss Dora Freeman, was brought to me with a line from the young lady by Mr. Randall’s colored servant Peter. I know you could not...

“It is a long time since I wrote a word in this book; I have been so happy and so busy withal; visits, rides, picnics, and everything. I did not know that life was so bright and...

“July 24th.—The richest thing has happened; the best joke I ever heard of; and I give myself great credit for having been the direct cause of its happening! If there is any one...

“I did not see Dora after all, and I had thought so much about it, feeling, I am afraid, more than willing that Robin should be sick, and so give me an excuse for going to Morri...

“It seems to me a year since I last wrote, and yet ’tis only three short weeks. But in that time so much has happened that I scarcely can realize it at all. Morrisville was very...

“‘There are some things in our family history,’ he began, ‘which I shall omit, as they have nothing in particular to do with Anna and myself. For instance, you know, perhaps, th...

This is the telegram which I received this morning, and to-morrow I am going to poor Margaret. God grant she may not be dead! Dear sister, what would I not give if I had never w...

The great house at Beechwood was closed, and the first September sunshine which lay so warmly on the grassy lawn and blooming flower-garden, found no entrance through the doors...

About the house at Beechwood the May flowers were blooming, and in the maple-trees the birds were building their nests, cooing lovingly to each other as they did so, and seeming...

As Dora reached this conclusion there came a well-known knock upon the door, and unfastening the bolt she admitted Johnnie, who had been up many times that day, but had not befo...

“Is it _I_? _Is_ it I? Oh, IS IT I, sitting here to-night with this pressure on my brain, this tightness about my eyes, this anguish in my heart, this feeling of desperation urg...

“Do I believe it now, after the first stunning effect is over, and I sit here alone thinking calmly of what came to me in Jessie Verner’s letter? Do I believe that Dora will mar...

That was what they called him at the hotel, which had been to him a home for years, and you would know by the intonation of their voices that he was a favorite with all. He was...

The summer moonlight was shining into the sick-room, where, with Richard and his mother beside him, Robert West was summoning nerve and courage to tell the story they were waiti...

So absorbed was Mrs. West in Robert that she seldom noticed Richard, and so she paid no heed when he one day came into the sick-room, looking whiter even than his brother, by wh...

Never had a summer passed so slowly to Dora Freeman as had the last, and yet now that it was gone, it seemed to her scarcely more than a week since the night she had said words...

The shadowy woods which skirt the lake shore tell no tales of what they see, neither do the mossy rocks, nor yet the plashing waves kissing the pebbly beach, and so Dora was fre...

The morning was breaking in the east,—a bright, rosy morning, such as is usual in early September,—a morning when the birds sang as gayly among the trees as in the summer-time,...

It was a novel sight to see the little procession which half an hour later left Mrs. Markham’s house and moved across the street. Wrapped in a blanket and reclining in the huge...

“Poor Squire Russell,” Jessie kept repeating to herself, as she saw him next morning going up to Dora, who would far rather not have seen him until some one had told him what sh...

There were two little graves now by Margaret’s, and in the house two vacant chairs, and two voices hushed, while Squire Russell counted four children where he had numbered six,...

The homestead where Dora’s childhood had been passed “could not be bought for love nor money;” so Robert, the negotiator, had reported to his brother on the morning following th...

“May 31st, 1863.—I did not think when last I closed this book, that I could ever be as happy as I am now,—happy in everything, happy in Richard’s love, happy in the love of God,...

The Sunday sermon was finished, and the young rector of St. Mark’s turned gladly from his study-table to the pleasant south window where the June roses were peeping in, and aban...

Mrs. Julia Meredith had arrived, and the brown farm-house was in a state of unusual excitement; not that Captain Humphreys or his good wife, Aunt Ruth, respected very highly the...

There was an unnatural flush on the rector’s face, and his lips were very white, when he came before his people that Sunday morning, for he felt that he was approaching the cris...

It was to all intents and purposes “blue Monday” with the rector of St. Mark’s, for aside from the weariness and exhaustion which always followed his two services on Sunday, and...

That open grassy spot in the dense shadow of the west woods was just the place for a picnic, and it looked very bright and pleasant that warm June afternoon, with the rustic tab...

There was a heavy shower the night succeeding the picnic, and the morning following was as balmy and bright as June mornings are wont to be after a fall of rain. They were alway...

Moved by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings took himself and his fast bays to Newport instead of Saratoga, and thither, the first week in August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eigh...

Lucy had insisted that she did not care to go to Saratoga. She preferred remaining in Hanover, where it was cool and quiet, and where she would not have to dress three times a d...

Through the rich curtains which shaded the windows of a room looking out on Fifth Avenue the late October sun was shining; and as its red light played among the flowers on the c...

She had one years before, but since the summer day when she sent from her the white-faced man, whose heart she knew she had broken, it had been hardening,—searing over with a st...

Arthur had been spending the evening at Prospect hill. The Hethertons were there now, and would remain till after the 15th; and since they came the rector had found it even plea...

Very extensive preparations were making at Prospect Hill for the double wedding to occur on the 15th of January. After much debate and consultation, Fanny had decided to take Mr...

The worshippers at St. Mark’s on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh dashed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound or dreamed of the s...