I never could understand why anybody should ever have begun to live at Dillsborough, or why the population there should have been at any time recruited by newcomers. That a man with a family should cl...

I can hardly describe accurately the exact position of the Masters family without first telling all that I know about the Morton family; and it is absolutely essential that the reader should know all ...

At six o’clock one November evening, Mr. Masters, the attorney, was sitting at home with his family in the large parlour of his house, his office being on the other side of the passage which cut the h...

The club, so called at Dillsborough, was held every Saturday evening in a back parlour at the Bush, and was attended generally by seven or eight members. It was a very easy club. There was no ballotin...

We will now go back to Hoppet Hall and its inhabitants. When the old squire died he left by his will Hoppet Hall and certain other houses in Dillsborough, which was all that he could leave, to his gra...

Reginald Morton, as he walked across the bridge towards the house, was thoroughly disgusted with all the world. He was very angry with himself, feeling that he had altogether made a fool of himself by...

Mary Masters, when Reginald Morton had turned his back upon her at the bridge, was angry with herself and with him, which was reasonable; and very angry also with Larry Twentyman, which was unreasonab...

There was certainly a great deal of fuss made about John Morton’s return to the home of his ancestors⁠—made altogether by himself and those about him, and not by those who were to receive him. On the ...

On the next morning Mrs. Morton asked her grandson what he meant to do with reference to his suggested invitation to Reginald. “As you will not meet him of course I have given up the idea,” he said. T...

The Senator and Morton followed close on the steps of Lord Rufford and Captain Glomax and were thus able to make their way into the centre of the crowd. There, on a clean sward of grass, laid out as c...

The fox ran straight from the covert through his well-known haunts to Impington Park, and as the hounds were astray there for two or three minutes there was a general idea that he too had got up into ...

On the Sunday the party from Bragton went to the parish church⁠—and found it very cold. The duty was done by a young curate who lived in Dillsborough, there being no house in Bragton for him. The rect...

When the ladies went upstairs the afternoon was not half over and they did not dine till past seven. As Morton returned to the house in the dusk he thought that perhaps Arabella might make some attemp...

“It’s that nasty, beastly, drunken club,” said Mrs. Masters to her unfortunate husband on the Wednesday morning. It may perhaps be remembered that the poisoned fox was found on the Saturday, and it ma...

On that same Wednesday Reginald Morton had called at the attorney’s house, had asked for Miss Masters, and had found her alone. Mrs. Masters at the time had been out, picking up intelligence about the...

Mr. Gotobed, when the persecutions of Goarly were described to him at the scene of the dead fox, had expressed considerable admiration for the man’s character as portrayed by what he then heard. The m...

On that same Wednesday afternoon when Morton returned with the ladies in the carriage he found that a mounted servant had arrived from Rufford Hall with a letter and had been instructed to wait for an...

On that Wednesday evening Mary Masters said nothing to any of her family as to the invitation from Lady Ushant. She very much wished to accept it. Latterly, for the last month or two, her distaste to ...

Before the time had come for the visit to Rufford Hall Mr. Gotobed had called upon Bearside the attorney and had learned as much as Mr. Bearside chose to tell him of the facts of the case. This took p...

Before the Monday came the party to Rufford Hall had become quite a settled thing and had been very much discussed. On the Saturday the Senator had been driven to the meet, a distance of about ten mil...

The phaeton arrived the first, the driver having been especially told by Arabella that he need not delay on the road for the other carriage. She had calculated that she might make her entrance with be...

As the meet on the next morning was in the park the party at Rufford Hall was able to enjoy the luxury of an easy morning together with the pleasures of the field. There was no getting up at eight o’c...

A closer intimacy will occasionally be created by some accident, some fortuitous circumstance, than weeks of ordinary intercourse will produce. Walk down Bond Street in a hailstorm of peculiar severit...

The people came of course, but not in such numbers as had been expected. Many of those in Rufford had heard of the accident, and having been made acquainted with Nokes’s report, stayed away. Everybody...

“Well, my love?” said Lady Augustus, as soon as her daughter had joined her in her bedroom. On such occasions there was always a quarter of an hour before going to bed in which the mother and daughter...

There was a great deal of trouble and some very genuine sorrow in the attorney’s house at Dillsborough during the first week in December. Mr. Masters had declared to his wife that Mary should go to Ch...

There were but two days between the scenes described in the last chapter and the day fixed for Mary’s departure, and during these two days Larry Twentyman’s name was not mentioned in the house. Mrs. M...

“So Peter Boyd is to go to Washington in the Paragon’s place, and Jack Slade goes to Vienna, and young Palliser is to get Slade’s berth at Lisbon.” This information was given by a handsome man, known ...

Soon after this Senator Gotobed went down, alone, to Dillsborough and put himself up at the Bush Inn. Although he had by no means the reputation of being a rich man, he did not seem to care much what ...

The month at Cheltenham was passed very quietly and would have been a very happy month with Mary Masters but that there grew upon her from day to day increasing fears of what she would have to undergo...

It might be surmised from the description which Lord Rufford had given of his own position to his sister and his sister’s two friends, when he pictured himself as falling over the edge of the precipic...

While the correspondence given in the last chapter was going on Miss Trefoil had other troubles besides those there narrated, and other letters to answer. Soon after her departure from Rufford she rec...

When Mary Masters got up on the morning after her arrival she knew that she would have to endure much on that day. Everybody had smiled on her the preceding evening, but the smiles were of a nature wh...

The silent system in regard to Mary was carried on in the attorney’s house for a week, during which her sufferings were very great. From the first she made up her mind to oppose her stepmother’s cruel...

John Morton had returned to town soon after his walk into Dillsborough and had there learned from different sources that both Arabella Trefoil and Lord Rufford had gone or were going to Mistletoe. He ...

When Arabella Trefoil started from London for Mistletoe, with no companion but her own maid, she had given more serious consideration to her visit than she had probably ever paid to any matter up to t...

“Jack is here,” said Lord Rufford, as soon as the fuss of his late arrival had worn itself away. “I shall be proud to renew my acquaintance.” “Can you come tomorrow?” “Oh yes,” said Arabella, rapturou...

On the next morning Arabella went to church as did of course a great many of the party. By remaining at home she could only have excited suspicion. The church was close to the house, and the family pe...

The Duchess did tell the Duke the whole story about Lord Rufford and Arabella that night⁠—as to which it may be said that she also was false. But according to her conscience there were two ways of tel...

Lord Rufford had been quite right about the Duchess. Arabella had only taken off her hat and was drinking her tea when the Duchess came up to her. “Lord Rufford says that you were too tired to come in...

While these great efforts were being made by Arabella Trefoil at Mistletoe, John Morton was vacillating in an unhappy mood between London and Bragton. It may be remembered that an offer was made to hi...

The company at the rector’s house consisted of the Senator, the two Mortons, Mr. Surtees the curate, and old Doctor Nupper. Mrs. Mainwaring was not well enough to appear, and the rector therefore was ...

There was great consternation in the attorney’s house after the writing of the letter to Lawrence Twentyman. For twenty-four hours Mrs. Masters did not speak to Mary, not at all intending to let her s...

Arabella Trefoil left her uncle’s mansion on the day after her lover’s departure, certainly not in triumph, but with somewhat recovered spirits. When she first heard that Lord Rufford was gone⁠—that h...

As it happened, Lord Rufford got the two letters together, the cause of which was as follows. When he ran away from Mistletoe, as he certainly did, he had thought much about that journey home in the c...

When Reginald Morton received his aunt’s letter he understood from it more than she had intended. Of course the man to whom allusion was made was Mr. Twentyman; and of course the discomfort at home ha...

When Mr. Masters had gone across to the Bush his purpose had certainly been ignoble, but it had had no reference to brandy and water. And the allusion made by Mrs. Masters to the probable ruin which w...

Here is the letter which at his brother-in-law’s advice Lord Rufford wrote to Arabella: Rufford, 3 February, 1875. My dear Miss Trefoil, It is a great grief to me that I should have to answer your let...

Lord Rufford’s letter reached Arabella at her cousin’s house, in due course, and was handed to her in the morning as she came down to breakfast. The envelope bore his crest and coronet, and she was su...

This was going on while Lord Rufford was shooting in the neighbourhood of Dillsborough; and when the letter was being put into its envelope at the lodgings in Orchard Street, his Lordship was just sit...

In the meantime our friend the Senator, up in London, was much distracted in his mind, finding no one to sympathise with him in his efforts, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, always brave aga...

The battle was carried on very fiercely in Mr. Masters’ house in Dillsborough, to the misery of all within it; but the conviction gained ground with everyone there that Mary was to be sent to Cheltenh...

On the Sunday Larry came into Dillsborough and had “his gossip with the girls” according to order;⁠—but it was not very successful. Mrs. Masters who opened the door for him instructed him in a special...

Arabella Trefoil had adhered without flinching to the purpose she had expressed of going down to Bragton to see the sick man. And yet at that very time she was in the midst of her contest with Lord Ru...

That evening was very long and very sad to the three ladies assembled in the drawing-room at Bragton Park, but it was probably more so to Lady Augustus than the other two. She hardly spoke to either o...

It may be a question whether Lord Augustus Trefoil or Lord Rufford looked forward to the interview which was to take place at the Duke’s mansion with the greater dismay. The unfortunate father whose o...

A few days after that on which Lady Augustus and her daughter left Bragton old Mrs. Morton returned to that place. She had gone away in very bitterness of spirit against her grandson in the early days...

On the next morning Mrs. Morton did not come down to breakfast, but sat alone upstairs nursing her wrath. During the night she had made up her mind to one or two things. She would never enter her gran...

When Mary reached her home she was at once met by her stepmother in the passage with tidings of importance. “He is upstairs in the drawing-room,” said Mrs. Masters. Mary whose mind was laden with thou...

The reader will have been aware that Arabella Trefoil was not a favourite at Mistletoe. She was so much disliked by the Duchess that there had almost been words about her between her Grace and the Duk...

Lady Augustus was still staying with the Connop Greens in Hampshire when she received the Duke’s letter and Arabella was with her. The story of Lord Rufford’s infidelity had been told to Mrs. Connop G...

Lady Augustus as she was driven back to Orchard Street and as she remained alone during the rest of that day and the next in London, became a little afraid of what she had done. She began to think how...

Day after day old Mrs. Morton urged her purpose with her grandson at Bragton, not quite directly as she had done at first, but by gradual approaches and little soft attempts made in the midst of all t...

On that Saturday the club met at Dillsborough⁠—even though the Squire of Bragton had died on Friday morning. Through the whole of that Saturday the town had been much exercised in its belief and expre...

“Poor old Paragon!” exclaimed Archibald Currie, as he stood with his back to the fire among his colleagues at the Foreign Office on the day after John Morton’s death. “Poor young Paragon! that’s the p...

Rufford, March 5th. My dear Miss Trefoil, I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by acceding to a suggestion which, I think I may say, originated with your mother. When she told me that her...

This thing that she was doing required an infinite amount of pluck⁠—of that sort of hardihood which we may not quite call courage, but which in a world well provided with policemen is infinitely more ...

At this time Senator Gotobed was paying a second visit to Rufford Hall. In the matter of Goarly and Scrobby he had never given way an inch. He was still strongly of opinion that a gentleman’s pheasant...

Rufford was a good deal moved as to the trial of Mr. Scrobby. Mr. Scrobby was a man who not long since had held his head up in Rufford and had the reputation of a well-to-do tradesman. Enemies had per...

When once Mrs. Morton had taken her departure for London, on the day after her grandson’s death, nothing further was heard of her at Bragton. She locked up everything and took all the keys away, as th...

Yes;⁠—it had come at last. As one may imagine to be the certainty of paradise to the doubting, fearful, all but despairing soul when it has passed through the gates of death and found in new worlds a ...

The little phaeton remained in Dillsborough to take Mary back to Bragton. As soon as she was gone the attorney went over to the Bush with the purpose of borrowing Runciman’s pony, so that he might rid...

Reginald Morton entertained serious thoughts of cleansing himself from the reproach which Larry cast upon him when describing his character to his mother. “I think I shall take to hunting,” he said to...

Lady Penwether declared to her husband that she had never seen her brother so much cowed as he had been by Miss Trefoil’s visit to Rufford. It was not only that he was unable to assert his usual power...

When Arabella Trefoil got back to Portugal Street after her visit to Rufford, she was ill. The effort she had made, the unaccustomed labour, and the necessity of holding herself aloft before the man w...

No sooner did the new two lovers, Mounser Green and Arabella Trefoil, understand each other, than they set their wits to work to make the best of their natural advantages. The latter communicated the ...

Wednesday, April 14th, was the day at last fixed for the Senator’s lecture. His little proposal to set England right on all those matters in which she had hitherto gone astray had created a considerab...

“If I see a man hungry in the street,” said the Senator, instigated by the question asked him at the end of the last chapter, “and give him a bit of bread, I don’t do it for my own sake but for his.” ...

The triumph of Mary Masters was something more than a nine days’ wonder to the people of Dillsborough. They had all known Larry Twentyman’s intentions and aspirations, and had generally condemned the ...

The Senator for Mickewa⁠—whose name we have taken for a book which might perhaps have been better called “The Chronicle of a Winter at Dillsborough”⁠—did not stay long in London after the unfortunate ...