When Miriam got out of the train into the darkness she knew that there were woods all about her. The moist air was rich with the smell of trees⁠—wet bark and branches⁠—moss and lichen, damp dead leave...

As Miriam sat having tea with the children in the dining-room the brougham drove up to the door. “There’s someone arriving,” she said, hoping to distract the attention of the children from her fumblin...

The next day the ground was powdered with snow. Large snowflakes were hurrying through the air driving to and fro on a harsh wind. The wind snored round the house like a flame and bellowed in the chim...

During her second week of giving the children their morning’s lessons Miriam saw finally that it was impossible and would always be impossible to make their two hours of application anything but an ir...

It was quite a long letter⁠—signed with a large “Bob” set crosswise. It began by asking her advice about a wedding present for Harriett and ended with the suggestion that she should meet him and help ...

The West End street⁠ ⁠… grey buildings rising on either side, feeling away into the approaching distance⁠—angles sharp against the sky⁠ ⁠… softened angles of buildings against other buildings⁠ ⁠… high...

The next morning there was a letter from Bob containing a page of description of his dull afternoon at his club within half a mile of her. “Let me know, my dear girl,” it went on, “whenever you escape...

When May came life lay round Miriam without a flaw. She seemed to have reached the summit of a hill up which she had been climbing ever since she came to Newlands. The weeks had been green lanes of ex...

But the next evening when Mr. Corrie came down for the weekend with a party of guests, Mrs. Corrie appeared with swift suddenness in Miriam’s room and glanced at her morning dress. “I say, missy, you’...

Coming home at ten o’clock in the morning, Miriam found the little villa standing quiet and empty in the sunshine. The sound of her coming down the empty tree-lined roadway had brought no face to eith...

Miriam sat with her mother near the bandstand. They faced the length of the esplanade with the row of houses that held their lodging to their right and the sea away to the left. She had found that it ...