What Necessity Knows

"It is not often that what we call the 'great sorrows of life' cause us the greatest sorrow. Death, acute disease, sudden and great losses--these are sometimes easily borne comp...

The Indian summer, that lingers in the Canadian forest after the fall of the leaves, had passed away. The earth lay frozen, ready to bear the snow. The rivers, with edge of thin...

Night, black and cold, settled over the house that had that day for the first time been visited by death. Besides the dead man, there were now three people to sleep in it: an ol...

The girl lifted the latch of the house-door, and went in. She was in the living-room. The old woman sat in a chair that was built of wood against the log wall. She was looking d...

At dawn Bates came down the ladder again, and went out quietly. The new day was fair, and calm; none of his fears were fulfilled. The dead man might start upon his journey, and...

The day was duller now. The sun, in passing into the western sky, had entered under thicker veils of white. The film of ice on the bay, which had melted in the pale sunbeams of...

When Saul and the oxen were once fairly started, they plodded on steadily. The track lay some way from the river and above it, through the gap in the hills. Little of the hills...

When the blueberry bushes are dry, all the life in them, sucked into their roots against another summer, the tops turn a rich, brownish red; at this time, also, wild bramble thi...

When Alec Trenholme started off the third time to reproach the recreant driver of the ox-cart, he had no intention of again dealing with him directly. He bent his steps to the l...

When the night train left Turrifs Station it thundered on into the darkness slowly enough, but, what with bumping over its rough rails and rattling its big cars, it seemed anxio...

The village of Chellaston was, in itself, insignificant. Its chief income was derived from summer visitors; its largest building was an hotel, greatly frequented in summer; and...

Captain Rexford had no fortune with his second wife; and their children numbered seven daughters and three sons. It was natural that the expenses of so large a family should hav...

It is upon the anniversary of feasts that a family, if despondent at all, feels most despondent. So it fell out that at Christmas-time the homesickness which hitherto had found...

Next day Eliza went out with two of the little children. It was in the early afternoon, and the sun shone brightly. Eliza had an errand down the street, but every one knows that...

That evening Blue and Red were sent to bed rather in disgrace, because they had professed themselves too sleepy to finish sewing a seam their mother had given them to do.

Sophia was sitting with Mrs. Rexford on the sofa that stood with its back to the dining-room window. The frame of the sofa was not turned, but fashioned with saw and knife and p...

The bells have solemn sound that from old belfries ring the passing of the year in the hearing of thousands; but perhaps it is a more solemn thing to watch and tell the birth of...

Why Alec Trenholme followed the old man toward the wood he himself would have found it a little difficult to tell. If this was really Cameron he did not wish that he should esca...

For two nights after that Alec Trenholme kept his lamp lit all night, placing it in his window so that all the light that could struggle through the frosted panes should cast an...

There was no very valuable timber on Bates's land. The romance of the lumber trade had already passed from this part of the country, but the farmers still spent their winters in...

It was a delightful proof of the blessed elasticity of inconsistency in human lives, a proof also that there was in these two men more of good than of evil, that that same eveni...

One evening Alec Trenholme sat down to write to his brother. Bates had urged him to write, and, after a due interval, of his own accord he wrote. The urging and the writing had...

The Rexford family was without a servant. Eliza, the girl they had brought with them from Quebec, had gone to a situation at the Chellaston hotel. The proprietor and manager of...

When Harkness found that he was always defied by Eliza he grew gloomy, and was quiet for a time. One day, however, he recovered his former cheerfulness. He seemed, indeed, to be...

The day after his coming, and the next, for some reason the old stranger called Cameron remained in the brick house to which Harkness had brought him. The young man, impatient f...

Principal Trenholme had been gone from Chellaston a day or two on business. When he returned one evening, he got into his smart little sleigh which was in waiting at the railway...

There was in Chellaston a very small and poor congregation of the sect called Adventists. The sect was founded by one Miller, a native of New York State, a great preacher and go...

Now came the most lovely moment of the year. All the trees were putting forth new leaves, leaves so young, so tiny as yet, that one could see the fowls of the air when they lodg...

Midsummer came with its culmination of heat and verdure; and a great epoch it was in the Chellaston year, for it brought the annual influx of fashionable life from Quebec and Mo...

Up the road, about a mile beyond the college and the Harmon house, there was a wilderness of ferns and sumac trees, ending in a stately pine grove that marked the place where ro...

So the days wore on till August. One morning Cyril Harkness lay in wait for Eliza. It was early; none of the boarders at the hotel were down yet. Eliza, who was always about in...

Nothing contributes more frequently to indecision of character in the larger concerns of existence than a life overcrowded with effort and performance. Had Robert Trenholme not...

Trenholme went from Mrs. Rexford's door that same day to pay some visits of duty in the village. The afternoon was warm, and exquisitely bright with the sort of dazzling brightn...

The next day, before Trenholme had had time to devise a plan for seeing Miss Rexford, Mrs. Martha brought him a telegram. She watched him as he drew his finger through the poor...

Trenholme went home and sat down to write an article for a magazine. Its subject was the discipline of life. He did not get on with it very well. He rose more than once to look...

shoulders. He asked for Mrs. Martha. "Have you got a parcel for her?" said Trenholme, thinking his housekeeper had probably retired, as she did not come to the door. The boy sig...

Trenholme went out on the verandah. At first, in the night, he saw nothing but the shadowy forms of the college building and of the trees upon the road. It was not raining at th...

That afternoon Alec Trenholme had essayed to bring his friend John Bates to Chellaston. Bates was in a very feeble state, bowed with asthma, and exhausted by a cough that seemed...

There is nothing of which men take less heed than the infection of emotion, a thing as real as that mysterious influence which in some diseases leaps forth from one to another t...

When Alec Trenholme rose from the dead man's side he felt his shoulder taken hold of by a familiar hand. He knew at once that it was his brother. It was quite what he would have...

All this time Alec was walking, like a sentry, up and down beside the old man's corpse. He was not alone. When the others had gone he found that the young American had remained...

That which is to be seen of any event, its causes and consequences, is never important compared with the supreme importance of those unseen workings of things physical and thing...

When Eliza had been in her own room for about half an hour, her passion had subsided. She was not glad of this; in perverseness she would have recalled the tempest if she could,...

Eliza sat still in her rough woodland chamber till the stray sunbeams had left its floor of moss and played only through the high open windows in the elm bough roof. She had see...

There are many difficulties in this world which, if we refuse to submit to them, will in turn be subdued by us, but a sprained ankle is not one of them. Robert Trenholme, having...

In the meantime the elder of the brothers Trenholme had not the satisfaction of meeting with Sophia Rexford, or of going to see the strange old man laid away in his last resting...

Robert Trenholme had a lively wit, and it stood him many times in lieu of chapel walls for within it he could retire at all times and be hidden. Of all that he experienced withi...

For a day or two previous to the conversation of the brothers about Alec's decision, Alec had been debating in his own mind what, after all, that decision had better be. Never h...

When Alec Trenholme had had the key of the Harmon house in his possession some days, he went one evening, beguiled by the charm of the weather and by curiosity, for the first ti...

That evening Mrs. Rexford and Sophia had been sitting sewing, as they often did, under a tree near the house. Sophia had mused and stitched. Then there came a time when her hand...

Although Mrs. Rexford had been without an indoor servant for several months of the winter, she had been fortunate enough to secure one for the summer. Her dairy had not yet reac...

After tea Sophia took Blue and Red apart into their little bedroom. An old cotton blind was pulled down to shield the low window from passers in the yard. The pane was open and...

When Sophia went to the hotel next morning, Eliza was not to be found. She was not in, and no one knew where she was. Mr. Hutchins was inclined to grumble at her absence as an a...

The wood behind the college grounds and Captain Rexford's pasture had appeared to Bates to be a place possessed only by the winds of heaven and by such sunshine and shadow as mi...

In the latter part of that day Bates suffered a fierce attack of his malady. Everyone in Trenholme's house, including the master himself on crutches, became agile in their desir...

It had not been continued resentment against Bates that had made Eliza refuse Miss Rexford's request; it was the memory of the kiss with which he had bade her good-bye. For two...

Robert Trenholme was still obliged to rest his sprained ankle, and was not yet going out, but an opportunity was afforded him of meeting his friendly neighbours, at least the fe...

Sophia Rexford stood and watched the last of the afternoon's company as, some driving and some on foot, they passed in different directions along the level road. It was a very p...

Just as that day had turned rosy at the close and then white with the lesser light of night, so did the summer now fade away in a blaze of colour, giving one last display of wha...

"Are you sure of that, papa,--that I would not have received him?" It was exactly what she had been saying to herself for days; but, now that another said it, the sentiment invo...

The day came on which Bates was to go home. He had had a week's petulant struggle with his malady since he last passed through the door of Trenholme's house, but now he had conq...

Sophia had lived on through a few more quiet days; and now she knew that the problem to which she had set herself was not that one pleasantly remote from her inmost self, as to...

Robert Trenholme had not told his brother that he had made his confession when he took tea with all the women. He knew that in such cases difference and separation are often fir...