“Edith!” said Margaret, gently, “Edith!” But as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley Street looking very lovely in her whi...

Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding. Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, non...

“Mr. Henry Lennox.” Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before, and remembering his inquiry into her probable occupations at home. It was “parler du soleil et l’on en voit les rayons;” and...

He was gone. The house was shut up for the evening. No more deep blue skies or crimson and amber tints. Margaret went up to dress for the early tea, finding Dixon in a pretty temper from the interrupt...

Margaret made a good listener to all her mother’s little plans for adding some small comforts to the lot of the poorest parishioners. She could not help listening, though each new project was a stab t...

The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off at the front door, to the nearest railway station. Even the pretty lawn at the side of the house, was made unsightly...

The next afternoon, about twenty miles from Milton-Northern, they entered on the little branch railway that led to Heston. Heston itself was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashor...

It needed the pretty light papering of the rooms to reconcile them to Milton. It needed more⁠—more that could not be had. The thick yellow November fogs had come on; and the view of the plain in the v...

The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour. He went up to different objects in the room, as if examining them, but ...

Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again. He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctu...

“Margaret!” said Mr. Hale as he returned from showing his guest downstairs; “I could not help watching your face with some anxiety, when Mr. Thornton made his confession of having been a shop-boy. I k...

Mr. Thornton had had some difficulty in working up his mother to the desired point of civility. She did not often make calls; and when she did, it was in heavy state that she went through her duties. ...

Margaret flew upstairs as soon as their visitors were gone, and put on her bonnet and shawl, to run and inquire how Betsy Higgins was, and sit with her as long as she could before dinner. As she went ...

It was a comfort to Margaret about this time, to find that her mother drew more tenderly and intimately towards her than she had ever done since the days of her childhood. She took her to her heart as...

“Margaret,” said her father, the next day, “we must return Mrs. Thornton’s call. Your mother is not very well, and thinks she cannot walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon.” As they went, M...

The next afternoon Dr. Donaldson came to pay his first visit to Mrs. Hale. The mystery that Margaret hoped their late habits of intimacy had broken through was resumed. She was excluded from the room,...

Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough. But the length of a street⁠—yes, the air of a Milton Street⁠—cheered her young blood before she reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her ...

On Margaret’s return home she found two letters on the table: one was a note for her mother⁠—the other, which had come by the post, was evidently from her aunt Shaw⁠—covered with foreign postmarks⁠—th...

Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all ...

Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of ...

Margaret and her father walked home. The night was fine, the streets clean, and with her pretty white silk, like Leezie Lindsay’s gown o’ green satin, in the ballad, “kilted up to her knee,” she was o...

Margaret was shown into the drawing-room. It had returned into its normal state of bag and covering. The windows were half open because of the heat, and the Venetian blinds covered the glass⁠—so that ...

Margaret had not been gone five minutes when Mr. Thornton came in, his face all aglow. “I could not come sooner: the superintendent would⁠—Where is she?” He looked round the dining-room, and then almo...

The next morning, Margaret dragged herself up, thankful that the night was over⁠—unrefreshed, yet rested. All had gone well through the house; her mother had only wakened once. A little breeze was sti...

Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected beforehand⁠—as distressing at the time of their occurrence, as the two she had had. An involuntary comparison between Mr. Lennox and Mr. ...

When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost blinded by his baffled passion. He was as dizzy as if Margaret, instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender graceful woma...

Mr. Thornton went straight and clear into all the interests of the following day. There was a slight demand for finished goods; and as it affected his branch of the trade, he took advantage of it, and...

That afternoon she walked swiftly to the Higgins’s house. Mary was looking out for her, with a half-distrustful face. Margaret smiled into her eyes to reassure her. They passed quickly through the hou...

The next morning brought Margaret a letter from Edith. It was affectionate and inconsequent like the writer. But the affection was charming to Margaret’s own affectionate nature; and she had grown up ...

Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning. She was much worse. One of those sudden changes⁠—those great visible strides towards death, had been taken in the night, and her own family were s...

The chill, shivery October morning came; not the October morning of the country, with soft, silvery mists, clearing off before the sunbeams that bring out all the gorgeous beauty of colouring, but the...

All the next day they sat together⁠—they three. Mr. Hale hardly ever spoke but when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it were, into the present. Frederick’s grief was no more to be ...

Home seemed unnaturally quiet after all this terror and noisy commotion. Her father had seen all due preparation made for her refreshment on her return; and then sat down again in his accustomed chair...

The “bearing up better than likely” was a terrible strain upon Margaret. Sometimes she thought she must give way, and cry out with pain, as the sudden sharp thought came across her, even during her ap...

Mr. Thornton sat on and on. He felt that his company gave pleasure to Mr. Hale; and was touched by the half-spoken wishful entreaty that he would remain a little longer⁠—the plaintive “Don’t go yet,” ...

At the time arranged the previous day, they set out on their walk to see Nicholas Higgins and his daughter. They both were reminded of their recent loss, by a strange kind of shyness in their new habi...

Higgins’s door was locked the next day, when they went to pay their call on the widow Boucher: but they learnt this time from an officious neighbour, that he was really from home. He had, however, bee...

It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely⁠—though she imagined that for this reason only was she so turned in his opinion⁠—but that this falsehood of hers bore a...

Margaret shut herself up in her own room, after she had quitted Mrs. Thornton. She began to walk backwards and forwards, in her old habitual way of showing agitation; but, then, remembering that in th...

Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell’s visit⁠—she had only looked forward to it on her father’s account, but when her godfather came, she at once fell into the most natural...

So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun. Mrs. Thornton had ...

The shock had been great. Margaret fell into a state of prostration, which did not show itself in sobs and tears, or even find the relief of words. She lay on the sofa with her eyes shut, never speaki...

Mrs. Shaw took as vehement a dislike as it was possible for one of her gentle nature to do, against Milton. It was noisy, and smoky, and the poor people whom she saw in the streets were dirty, and the...

It was very well for Margaret that the extreme quiet of the Harley Street house, during Edith’s recovery from her confinement, gave her the natural rest which she needed. It gave her time to comprehen...

The idea of Helstone had been suggested to Mr. Bell’s waking mind by his conversation with Mr. Lennox, and all night long it ran riot through his dreams. He was again the tutor in the college where he...

Margaret was ready long before the appointed time, and had leisure enough to cry a little, quietly, when unobserved, and to smile brightly when anyone looked at her. Her last alarm was lest they shoul...

About this time Dixon returned from Milton, and assumed her post as Margaret’s maid. She brought endless pieces of Milton gossip: How Martha had gone to live with Miss Thornton, on the latter’s marria...

The elements of the dinner-parties which Mrs. Lennox gave, were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day; and Mr. Henry Lennox, and the s...

“Is not Margaret the heiress?” whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford. She had pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and ...

Meanwhile at Milton the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat and dazzling whirr of machinery struggled and strove perpetually. Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in ...

It was a hot summer’s evening. Edith came into Margaret’s bedroom, the first time in her habit, the second ready dressed for dinner. No one was there at first; the next time Edith found Dixon laying o...

Edith went about on tiptoe, and checked Sholto in all loud speaking that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room. Two o’clock came...