Classics Books

CHAPTER VI 1847-52 Page 91. On January 1, 1847, Lady John wrote in her diary that the year was beginning most prosperously for her and those dearest to her. "Within my own home all is peace and happiness." About a month later she became dangerously ill in London.LONDON,February21, 1847 I have been very ill since I last wrote.... I felt that life was still dear to me for the sake of those I love... more...

CHAPTER I. I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any reports of our strange family history should come down to after generations the thing may be properly understood. The old times at Trevorsham seem to me so remote, that I can hardly believe that we are the same who were so happy then. Nay, Jaquetta laughs, and declares that it is not possible to be happier than we have been... more...

"LADY DAISY."A DOLL STORY. Little Flora's father gave her a small china doll on her fourth birthday. It was only a little one, but Flora's father said that his little girl was very small too, and he thought she could not carry a big doll yet. When Flora was five years old her father gave her a larger one, and when she was six her father presented her with a beautiful baby doll in long... more...

Lady Clare It was the time when lilies blow,And clouds are highest up in air.Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doeTo give his cousin, Lady Clare. I trow they did not part in scorn:Lovers long betrothed were they;They two will wed the morrow morn;God's blessing on the day! "He does not love me for my birthNor for my lands so broad and fair;He loves me for my own true worth,And that is well,"... more...

A Matrimonial Hurdle. Cassandra Raynor stood on the terrace of her great house, looking over the sweep of country stretching to right and left, and in her heart was the deadliest of all weariness,—the weariness of repletion. It seemed at that moment the bitterest cross that she had nothing left for which to wish, that everything good which the world could give was hers already, and had left her cold.... more...

CHAPTER 1 Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on the cliff—the Emu Point side—overlooking the broad Leichardt River. The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran—Australian fashion—along the front of the cottage, except for the... more...

CHAPTER I. LUCY. It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the Court you had no business there at all. At... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.  Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,—a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,—on the 1st of June,... more...

MISS THOMASINA TUCKER I “Good-bye, Miss Tucker!” “Good luck, Miss Tommy!” “Bye, bye, Tomsie!” “Don’t stay away too long!” These sentiments were being called from the Hoboken dock to the deck of an ocean steamer, while a young lady, buried in bouquets and bonbons, leaned over the rail, sparkling, inciting, compelling, responding. “Take care of yourself, Tommy!” “I don’t see but... more...

CHAPTER I Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town. Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in... more...