Of course there was a Great House at Allington. How otherwise should there have been a Small House? Our story will, as its name imports, have its closest relations with those who lived in the less dig...

“But Mr. Crosbie is only a mere clerk.” This sarcastic condemnation was spoken by Miss Lilian Dale to her sister Isabella, and referred to a gentleman with whom we shall have much concern in these pag...

As Mrs. Dale, of the Small House, was not a Dale by birth, there can be no necessity for insisting on the fact that none of the Dale peculiarities should be sought for in her character. These peculiar...

I have said that John Eames had been petted by none but his mother, but I would not have it supposed, on this account, that John Eames had no friends. There is a class of young men who never get pette...

Apollo Crosbie left London for Allington on the 31st of August, intending to stay there four weeks, with the declared intention of recruiting his strength by an absence of two months from official car...

I am well aware that I have not as yet given any description of Bell and Lilian Dale, and equally well aware that the longer the doing so is postponed the greater the difficulty becomes. I wish it cou...

Lily, as she parted with her lover in the garden, had required of him to attend upon her the next morning as he went to his shooting, and in obedience to this command he appeared on Mrs. Dale’s lawn a...

On the following morning at breakfast each of the three gentlemen at the Great House received a little note on pink paper, nominally from Mrs. Dale, asking them to drink tea at the Small House on that...

The next day was the day of the party. Not a word more was said on that evening between Bell and her cousin, at least, not a word more of any peculiar note; and when Crosbie suggested to his friend on...

I should simply mislead a confiding reader if I were to tell him that Mrs. Lupex was an amiable woman. Perhaps the fact that she was not amiable is the one great fault that should be laid to her charg...

Mr. and Mrs. Lupex had eaten a sweetbread together in much connubial bliss on that day which had seen Cradell returning to Mrs. Roper’s hospitable board. They had together eaten a sweetbread, with som...

And now we will go back to Allington. The same morning that brought to John Eames the two letters which were given in the last chapter but one, brought to the Great House, among others, the following ...

As the party from Allington rode up the narrow high-street of Guestwick, and across the market square towards the small, respectable, but very dull row of new houses in which Mrs. Eames lived, the peo...

John Eames watched the party of cavaliers as they rode away from his mother’s door, and then started upon a solitary walk, as soon as the noise of the horses’ hoofs had passed away out of the street. ...

Last days are wretched days; and so are last moments wretched moments. It is not the fact that the parting is coming which makes these days and moments so wretched, but the feeling that something spec...

For the first mile or two of their journey Crosbie and Bernard Dale sat, for the most part, silent in their gig. Lily, as she ran down to the churchyard corner and stood there looking after them with ...

Courcy Castle was very full. In the first place, there was a great gathering there of all the Courcy family. The earl was there⁠—and the countess, of course. At this period of the year Lady De Courcy ...

Crosbie was rather proud of himself when he went to bed. He had succeeded in baffling the charge made against him, without saying anything as to which his conscience need condemn him. So, at least, he...

Mrs. Dale acknowledged to herself that she had not much ground for hoping that she should ever find in Crosbie’s house much personal happiness for her future life. She did not dislike Mr. Crosbie, nor...

If there was anything in the world as to which Isabella Dale was quite certain, it was this⁠—that she was not in love with Dr. Crofts. As to being in love with her cousin Bernard, she had never had oc...

Lily thought that her lover’s letter was all that it should be. She was not quite aware what might be the course of post between Courcy and Allington, and had not, therefore, felt very grievously disa...

The earl and John Eames, after their escape from the bull, walked up to the Manor House together. “You can write a note to your mother, and I’ll send it by one of the boys,” said the earl. This was hi...

A week passed over Mr. Crosbie’s head at Courcy Castle without much inconvenience to him from the well-known fact of his matrimonial engagement. Both George De Courcy and John De Courcy had in their d...

On the following morning Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was off upon his political mission before breakfast;⁠—either that, or else some private comfort was afforded to him in guise of solitary rolls and cof...

Crosbie, as he was being driven from the castle to the nearest station, in a dogcart hired from the hotel, could not keep himself from thinking of that other morning, not yet a fortnight past, on whic...

Lady Julia De Guest had not during her life written many letters to Mr. Dale of Allington, nor had she ever been very fond of him. But when she felt certain how things were going at Courcy, or rather,...

In the meantime Lady Alexandrina endeavoured to realize to herself all the advantages and disadvantages of her own position. She was not possessed of strong affections, nor of depth of character, nor ...

Crosbie, as we already know, went to his office in Whitehall on the morning after his escape from Sebright’s, at which establishment he left the Squire of Allington in conference with Fowler Pratt. He...

John Eames and Crosbie returned to town on the same day. It will be remembered how Eames had assisted Lord De Guest in the matter of the bull, and how great had been the earl’s gratitude on the occasi...

I have already declared that Crosbie wrote and posted the fatal letter to Allington, and we must now follow it down to that place. On the morning following the squire’s return to his own house, Mrs. C...

Nearly two months passed away, and it was now Christmas time at Allington. It may be presumed that there was no intention at either house that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that recei...

The show of fat beasts in London took place this year on the twentieth day of December, and I have always understood that a certain bullock exhibited by Lord De Guest was declared by the metropolitan ...

“Did you hear that young Eames is staying at Guestwick Manor?” As these were the first words which the squire spoke to Mrs. Dale as they walked together up to the Great House, after church, on Christm...

I have said that John Eames was at his office punctually at twelve; but an incident had happened before his arrival there very important in the annals which are now being told⁠—so important that it is...

Crosbie had two engagements for that day; one being his natural engagement to do his work at his office, and the other an engagement, which was now very often becoming as natural, to dine at St. John’...

John Eames had reached his office precisely at twelve o’clock, but when he did so he hardly knew whether he was standing on his heels or his head. The whole morning had been to him one of intense exci...

“Have you been thinking again of what I was saying to you, Bell?” Bernard said to his cousin one morning. “Thinking of it, Bernard? Why should I think more of it? I had hoped that you had forgotten it...

Mrs. Dale had not sat long in her drawing-room before tidings were brought to her which for a while drew her mind away from that question of her removal. “Mamma,” said Bell, entering the room, “I real...

“Have you heard the news, my dear, from the Small House?” said Mrs. Boyce to her husband, some two or three days after Mrs. Dale’s visit to the squire. It was one o’clock, and the parish pastor had co...

The fourteenth of February was finally settled as the day on which Mr. Crosbie was to be made the happiest of men. A later day had been at first named, the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth having been ...

When Crosbie was making his ineffectual inquiry after Lady De Courcy’s bracelet at Lambert’s, John Eames was in the act of entering Mrs. Roper’s front door in Burton Crescent. “Oh, John, where’s Mr. C...

Lily Dale’s constitution was good, and her recovery was retarded by no relapse or lingering debility; but, nevertheless, she was forced to keep her bed for many days after the fever had left her. Duri...

Will any reader remember the loves⁠—no, not the loves; that word is so decidedly ill-applied as to be incapable of awakening the remembrance of any reader; but the flirtations⁠—of Lady Dumbello and Mr...

Lily had exacted a promise from her mother before her illness, and during the period of her convalescence often referred to it, reminding her mother that that promise had been made, and must be kept. ...

The fourteenth of February in London was quite as black, and cold, and as wintersome as it was at Allington, and was, perhaps, somewhat more melancholy in its coldness. Nevertheless Lady Alexandrina D...

Mr. Crosbie and his wife went upon their honeymoon tour to Folkestone in the middle of February, and returned to London about the end of March. Nothing of special moment to the interests of our story ...

Income-tax Office, April 8, 18⁠—. My dear Lord De Guest, I hardly know how to answer your letter, it is so very kind⁠—more than kind. And about not writing before⁠—I must explain that I have not liked...

Crosbie had now settled down to the calm realities of married life, and was beginning to think that the odium was dying away which for a week or two had attached itself to him, partly on account of hi...

“Mamma, read that letter.” It was Mrs. Dale’s eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were alone together in the parlour at the Small House. Mrs. Dale took the letter and read it very carefully. Sh...

On that day they dined early at the Small House, as they had been in the habit of doing since the packing had commenced. And after dinner Mrs. Dale went through the gardens, up to the other house, wit...

John Eames succeeded in making his bargain with Sir Raffle Buffle. He accepted the private secretaryship on the plainly expressed condition that he was to have leave of absence for a fortnight towards...

When John Eames arrived at Guestwick Manor, he was first welcomed by Lady Julia. “My dear Mr. Eames,” she said, “I cannot tell you how glad we are to see you.” After that she always called him John, a...

The squire had been told that his niece Bell had accepted Dr. Crofts, and he had signified a sort of acquiescence in the arrangement, saying that if it were to be so, he had nothing to say against Dr....

Bell had declared that her sister would be very happy to see John Eames if he would go over to Allington, and he had replied that of course he would go there. So much having been, as it were, settled,...

It will perhaps be remembered that terrible things had been foretold as about to happen between the Hartletop and Omnium families. Lady Dumbello had smiled whenever Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had spoken...

It has been told in the last chapter how Lady De Courcy gave a great party in London in the latter days of April, and it may therefore be thought that things were going well with the De Courcys; but I...

Mrs. Dale had been present during the interview in which John Eames had made his prayer to her daughter, but she had said little or nothing on that occasion. All her wishes had been in favour of the s...

There was something in the tone of Mrs. Dale’s voice, as she desired her daughter to come up to the house, and declared that her budget of news should be opened there, which at once silenced Lily’s as...

Eames, when he was halfway up to London in the railway carriage, took out from his pocket a letter and read it. During the former portion of his journey he had been thinking of other things; but gradu...

It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins⁠—pleading that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House. There w...