Women of the Country

The little grey chapel at the corner of two roads was lighted and already hot with steam on the windows. The wooden pews, set on steps which rose evenly to the window-sill at th...

In the afternoon of the following day Anne entered the common room of the Infirmary. In this large room, with high windows spotlessly clean, a fireplace at one end in which a su...

The stirring of anger at Richard Burton's callousness gave way almost at once to a feeling of fatigue and defeat as she started on her return home, and a persistent image of Jan...

Mrs Hankworth lived at one of the largest farms in the country, some three miles away from Anne Hilton's cottage. The farmstead was, contrary to the usual custom, not placed nea...

Winter hastens his pace when the harvest is gathered, and it was one of those serene winter days on which, if one sat in a sheltered place full of sunshine, one might believe th...

There was no covered market even in so considerable a town as Haybarn. From end to end of the rectangular market-place were set wooden tables on movable trestles, and over these...

Anne Hilton was one of those women who have so little knowledge of the practical thoughts of those round about them, that they pass their lives half-disliked, partly respected,...

It was a cool evening in early summer, full of the leisurely peace of the country. The women were out of doors after much perspiring work within. It was too early for the shadow...

She had scarcely had time to recover breath before Burton, the horse-breeder, came into the room--a big-bearded man, of heavy build, with a familiar loudness and fussiness which...

So placid and unimpressive was the country which lay about Anne Hilton's cottage, that in the lanes which branched from it one seldom thought of any other season than that of sp...

When I was a child I lived in a small sea-coast town, with wide, flat sands. The only beautiful thing in the place--a town of no distinction--were the sunsets over this vast, le...

It was evening in the country at harvest-time, at that moment towards sundown when the light, about to be withdrawn, glows with a fulness of gold which makes it seem impossible...

Next day at daybreak the country was whitened by a light mist. The birds sang incessantly with long ecstatic calling from throats which had drunk the air of the dawn and retaine...

It was the first day of spring, the season of swift changes. For the first time the sky was lighter than the ground. Its brilliant clouds threw heavy shadows on the earth, fugit...

Anne Hilton got up when the sky was tinged with the sunrise, feeling anew the security of recovered daylight after the stillness of the lonely house during the night. There was...

Next day Anne arose to be at once aware of the heavy task before her. As she set her house in order she would stop abstractedly and sit down to think what was best to be done. T...

When the business of the market was done, and Anne reached the Union, it was late in the afternoon. The roads outside the town were full of farmers returning from the market, of...

For three months Anne had prayed constantly for Jane. Living alone in an orderly and quiet house with one window open towards her Invisible Friend, she had spoken with Him of he...

Mary Colton was one of the most esteemed women possible in any country-side. She had scarcely been beyond the few miles which surrounded her home, and since she was a girl had n...

Anne was left alone in the cottage with the baby, who slept in the clothes-basket she had turned into a cradle. The dog slept, too, having made friends with fortune. A late even...

The habit of working for another is so fixed in the lives of poor women, that the interruption of it becomes a kind of second death, almost as difficult to bear as the death of...