Alla padrona mia; ed a te, sorella carissima! Consolatrici gentillissime della desolata....

Carlingford is, as is well known, essentially a quiet place. There is no trade in the town, properly so called. To be sure, there are two or three small countinghouses at the other end of George Stree...

Meanwhile Mr. Wentworth, without much thought of his sins, went down George Street, meaning to turn off at the first narrow turning which led down behind the shops and traffic, behind the comfort and ...

Next week was Passion Week, and full of occupation. Even if it had been consistent either with Mr. Wentworth’s principles or Lucy’s to introduce secular affairs into so holy a season, they had not tim...

Mr. Wentworth’s sermon on Easter Sunday was one which he himself long remembered, though it is doubtful whether any of his congregation had memories as faithful. To tell the truth, the young man put a...

Next day the Miss Wentworths made a solemn call at the Rectory, having known an aunt of Mrs. Morgan at some period of their history, and being much disposed, besides, with natural curiosity, to ascert...

Miss Dora Wentworth relapsed into suppressed sobbing when the three ladies were once more on their way. Between each little access a few broken words fell from the poor lady’s lips. “I am sure dear Fr...

“Your Rector is angry at some of your proceedings,” said Miss Leonora. “I did not think a man of your views would have cared for missionary work. I should have supposed that you would think that vulga...

It was the next morning after this when Mrs. Hadwin’s strange lodger first appeared in the astonished house. He was the strangest lodger to be taken into a house of such perfect respectability, a hous...

“If they are going to stay in Carlingford, perhaps we could be of use to them? Yes, Lucy; and I am sure anything we could do for Mr. Wentworth⁠—” said Miss Wodehouse. “I wonder what house they will ge...

It may be easily supposed after this that Mr. Wentworth and his proceedings were sufficiently overlooked and commented upon in Carlingford. The Miss Wentworths took old Major Brown’s house for six mon...

Miss Dora Wentworth rose very unrefreshed next morning from her disturbed slumbers. It was hard to sit at breakfast with Leonora, and not betray to her the new anxiety; and the troubled sister ran int...

On the afternoon of the same day Mr. Morgan went home late, and frightened his wife out of her propriety by the excitement and trouble in his face. He could do nothing but groan as he sat down in the ...

“I want to know what all this means about young Wentworth,” said Mr. Wodehouse. “He’s gone off, it appears, in a hurry, nobody knows where. Well, so they say. To his brother’s, is it? I couldn’t know ...

The next afternoon there were signs of a considerable commotion in Mr. Elsworthy’s shop. Rosa had disappeared altogether, and Mrs. Elsworthy, with an ominous redness on her cheeks, had taken the place...

It was midday, and more than twelve hours after he had left Carlingford, before Mr. Wentworth reached the Rectory. He had snatched a few hours’ sleep in London, where he was obliged to pause because o...

The Curate of St. Roque’s found his brother in his library, looking very much as he always looked at first glance. But Gerald was not reading nor writing nor doing anything. He was seated in his usual...

The Curate of St. Roque’s went sadly along the road he knew so well from Wentworth Rectory to the Hall. There was scarcely a tree nor the turning of a hedgerow which had not its own individual memorie...

Very little came, as was natural, of the talk in the library, to which the entire afternoon was devoted. The Squire, in his way, was as great an interruption to the arguments of the Curate as was poor...

“The sum of it all is, that you won’t hear any reason, Gerald,” said the Squire. “What your brother says, and what I say, are nothing; your poor wife is nothing; and all a man’s duties, sir, in life⁠—...

Mr. Wentworth got back to Carlingford by a happy concurrence of trains before the town had gone to sleep. It was summer, when the days are at the longest, and the twilight was just falling into night ...

When the green door was opened, Mr. Wentworth saw at a glance that there was agitation and trouble in the house. Lights were twinkling irregularly in the windows here and there, but the family apartme...

When Mr. Wentworth entered Mrs. Hadwin’s garden in the dark, his first glance up at the house showed him that a certain change had passed on it also. The decorous little house had been turned inside o...

The Curate went to breakfast next morning with a little curiosity and a great deal of painful feeling. He had been inhospitable to his brother, and a revulsion had happened such as happens invariably ...

When Mr. Wentworth arrived in the little vestry at St. Roque’s to robe himself for the approaching service, it was after a long and tough contest with Mr. Wodehouse’s partner, which had to a great ext...

The Curate got up very early next morning. He had his sermon to write and it was Saturday, and all the events of the week had naturally enough unsettled his mind, and indisposed him for sermon-writing...

The first thing Mr. Wentworth did was to hasten upstairs to Wodehouse’s room. Sarah had gone before him, and was by this time talking to her mistress, who had left the window, and stood, still in her ...

Mr. Wentworth retired to his own quarters with enough to think about for one morning. He could not make up his mind about Wodehouse⁠—whether he was guilty or not guilty. It seemed incredible that, pen...

Mrs. Morgan was in the garden watering her favourite ferns when her husband returned home to dinner on the day of Mr. Wodehouse’s death. The Rector was late, and she had already changed her dress, and...

Mr. Wentworth went upon his way, after he had parted from Mrs. Morgan, with a moment’s gratitude; but he had not gone half-a-dozen steps before that amiable sentiment yielded to a sense of soreness an...

“I don’t know what is the exact connection between tea and reformation,” said Jack Wentworth, with a wonderful yawn. “When I consider that this is all on account of that stupid beast Wodehouse, I feel...

“I will do what I can for you,” said Mr. Morgan; “yours is a very hard case, as you say. Of course it would not do for me to give any opinion⁠—but such a thing shall not occur in Carlingford, while I ...

It was the afternoon of the same day on which Mr. Proctor arrived in Carlingford that Mr. Wentworth received the little note from Miss Wodehouse which was so great a consolation to the Perpetual Curat...

Mr. Wentworth had to go into Carlingford on some business when he left Miss Wodehouse; and as he went home again, having his head full of so many matters, he forgot for the moment what most immediatel...

When the door closed upon Lucy and her sister, Mr. Wentworth stood by himself, facing the other people assembled. The majority of them were more surprised, more shocked, than he was; but they were hud...

Mr. Wentworth’s day had been closely occupied up to this point. He had gone through a great many emotions, and transacted a good deal of business, and he went home with the comparative ease of a man w...

The first investigation into the character of the Rev. F. C. Wentworth, Curate of St. Roque’s was fixed to take place in the vestry of the parish church, at eleven o’clock on the morning of the day wh...

The little assembly which met in the vestry of Carlingford Church to inquire into the conduct of the Perpetual Curate, had so many different interests in hands when it dispersed, and so much to do, th...

While matters were thus arranging themselves in the ideas at least of the two sisters whose prospects had been so suddenly changed, explanations of a very varied kind were going on in the house of the...

Mr. Morgan did not go home direct from the investigation of the morning; on the contrary, he paid various visits, and got through a considerable amount of parish business, before he turned his face to...

“Now, Mr. Wodehouse,” said Jack Wentworth, “it appears that you and I have a word to say to each other.” They had all risen when the other gentlemen followed Mr. Morgan out of the room, and those who ...

Next morning the Curate got up with anticipations which were far from cheerful, and a weary sense of the monotony and dullness of life. He had won his little battle, it was true; but the very victory ...

Frank Wentworth once more went up Grange Lane, a thoughtful and a sober man. Exhilaration comes but by moments in the happiest of lives⁠—and already he began to remember how very little he had to be e...

These were eventful days in Grange Lane, when gossip was not nearly rapid enough to follow the march of events. When Mr. Wentworth went to lunch with his family, the two sisters kept together in the d...

“Going to be married!” said the Squire; “and to a sister of⁠—I thought you told me she was as old as Dora, Frank? I did not expect to meet with any further complications,” the old man said, plaintivel...

While Mr. Frank Wentworth’s affairs were thus gathering to a crisis, other events likely to influence his fate were also taking place in Carlingford. Breakfast had been served a full half-hour later t...

Mr. Wentworth did not accept Mrs. Morgan’s sudden invitation, partly because his “people” did not leave Carlingford that evening, and partly because, though quite amiably disposed towards the Rector, ...

The dinner-party at the Rectory, to which Mr. Wentworth did not go, was much less interesting and agreeable than it might have been had he been present. As for the Rector and his wife, they could not ...

It was the same afternoon that Mr. Wentworth failed to attend, as he had never been known to fail before, at the afternoon’s school which he had set up in Prickett’s Lane for the young bargemen, who b...

She was the daughter of old Sir Jasper Shelton, a poor family, but very respectable, and connected with the Westerns. ↩...