To the memory of my mother...

A few introductory and explanatory remarks are due, I think, to the reader of the following Memoirs. The Memoirs themselves will disclose how I became acquainted with Miss M. They also refer here and ...

A wild beast there is in Aegypt, called orix, which the Aegyptians say, doth stand full against the dog starre when it riseth, looketh wistly upon it, and testifieth after a sort by sneesing, a kind o...

Some few years ago a brief account of me found its way into one or two country newspapers. I have been told, that it reappeared, later, in better proportion, in the Metropolitan Press! Fortunately, or...

Some few years ago a brief account of me found its way into one or two country newspapers. I have been told, that it reappeared, later, in better proportion, in the Metropolitan Press! Fortunately, or...

When precisely I began to speculate why I was despatched into this world so minute and different I cannot say. Pretty early, I fancy, though few opportunities for comparison were afforded me, and for ...

Not that in an existence so passive riddles never came my way. As one morning I brushed past a bush of lads’ love (or maidens’ ruin, as some call it), its fragrance sweeping me from top to toe, I stum...

In the midst of my eighteenth year fortune began to darken. My mother had told me little of the world, its chances and changes, cares and troubles. What I had learned of these came chiefly from books ...

Am I sorry that almost beside myself with this new affliction, and bewildered and frightened by the incessant coming and going of strangers in the house, I refused to be carried down to bid that unans...

Those last few days of August dragged on⁠—days of a burning, windless heat. Yet, as days, I enjoyed them. On some upper branch of my family tree must have flourished the salamander. Indeed I think I s...

When I awoke, the morning sky was gay with sunshine, there was a lisping and gurgling of starlings on the roof, the roar of the little river in flood after the rains shook the air at my window, and th...

Still the slow train bumped on, loath to drag itself away from the happy harvest fields. Darkness was near when we ourselves alighted at our destination, mounted into a four-wheeled cab, and once more...

Still the slow train bumped on, loath to drag itself away from the happy harvest fields. Darkness was near when we ourselves alighted at our destination, mounted into a four-wheeled cab, and once more...

A carpenter of the name of Bates was called in, so distant a relative of Mrs. Bowater’s apparently that she never by nod, word, or look acknowledged the bond. Mr. Bates held my landlady in almost spee...

One suppertime I ventured to ask Mrs. Bowater if she would hand me down a tall, thin, dark-green volume, whose appearance had particularly taken my fancy. A simple enough request, but surprisingly rec...

If it was the child of wrath in me that hungered at times after the night, woods, and solitude to such a degree that my very breast seemed empty within me; it was now the child of grace that prevailed...

The next afternoon Mrs. Bowater was out when Dr. Phelps made his call. It was Fanny who ushered him into the room. He felt my pulse again, held up the phial of medicine to the light, left unconsulted ...

Was there suspicion in the face of Mrs. Bowater that evening? Our usual familiar talk dwindled to a few words this suppertime. The old conflict was raging in my mind⁠—hatred of my deceit, horror at be...

When my eyes opened next morning, a strange, still glare lay over the ceiling, and I looked out of my window on a world mantled and cold with snow. For a while I forgot the fever of the last few days ...

I grew a little weary of the beautiful snow in the days that followed my first talk with Mr. Crimble, and fretted at the close air of the house. The last day of the year the wind was still in the nort...

For many days my mind was an empty husk, yet in a constant torment of longing, daydream, despair, and self-reproaches. Everything I looked at had but one meaning⁠—that she was not there. I did not dar...

We jogged on sluggishly up the hill, and at last, in our velvety quiet, as if at a preconcerted signal, Pollie and I turned and looked at one another, and broke into a long, mirthless peal of laughter...

At last there came a post which brought me, not a sermon from Miss Fenne, nor gossip from Pollie, but a message from the Islands of the Blest. All that evening and night it lay unopened under my pillo...

At last there came a post which brought me, not a sermon from Miss Fenne, nor gossip from Pollie, but a message from the Islands of the Blest. All that evening and night it lay unopened under my pillo...

One of the many perplexing problems that now hemmed me in was brushed away by Fortune that afternoon. Between gloomy bursts of reflection on Fanny’s, Mr. Crimble’s, Mrs. Bowater’s, and my own account,...

“Mr. Crimble,” I whispered, “I have a message.” A tense excitement seized him. His face turned a dusky yellow. How curious it is to see others as they must sometimes see ourselves. Should I have gaspe...

That night I wrote to Fanny, copying out my letter from the scrawling draft from which I am copying it now:⁠— “Dear Fanny⁠—I have given Mr. Crimble your message; first, exactly in your own words, thou...

Then instantly I discovered the cause of the bird’s alarm. At first I fancied that this strange figure was at some little distance. Then I realized that his stature had misled me, and that he could no...

My landlady was already awaiting me at the place appointed, and we walked off together towards the house. It had been a prudent arrangement, for we met and passed at least half a dozen strangers befor...

With this dwarf tree in my arms, when came the auspicious afternoon, I followed Lady Pollacke’s parlourmaid⁠—her neat little bonnet tied with a bow under her ear⁠—down my Bateses, and was lifted by Mr...

Once more I sat down, but this time in the midst of what seemed to me a rather unpleasant silence, as if the room had grown colder: a silence which was broken only by the distant whistlings of a thrus...

There had been no need to reserve the small hours for these ruminations. The next few days were wet and windy; every glance at the streaming panes cast my mind into a sort of vacancy. The wind trumpet...

I stumbled off, feeling smaller and smaller as I went, more and more ridiculous and insignificant, as indeed I must have appeared; for distance can hardly lend enchantment to any view of me. Not one s...

Yet, in spite of misgivings, no very dark foreboding companioned me that evening. With infinite labour I concocted two letters:⁠— “Dear Mr. Crimble⁠—I regret my words this afternoon. Bitterly. Indeed ...

Out of a cab from a livery stable Mrs. Bowater and I alighted at our London terminus next morning, to find positively awaiting us beside the wooden platform a first-class railway carriage⁠—a palatial ...

Out of a cab from a livery stable Mrs. Bowater and I alighted at our London terminus next morning, to find positively awaiting us beside the wooden platform a first-class railway carriage⁠—a palatial ...

I surveyed with horror the recumbent, angular figure stretched out on the long, narrow, horsehair sofa. The shut eyes⁠—it was selfish to leave me like this. “There, miss, don’t take on,” Mrs. Petrie w...

A morning or two afterwards we set out on our homeward journey⁠—the sea curdling softly into foam on its stones, a solitary ship in the distance on its dim, blue horizon. We were a dejected pair of tr...

And then⁠—well, life plays strange tricks. In a week or two London had swallowed me up. How many times, I wonder, had I tried in fancy to picture Mrs. Monnerie’s town house. How romantic an edifice fa...

And then⁠—well, life plays strange tricks. In a week or two London had swallowed me up. How many times, I wonder, had I tried in fancy to picture Mrs. Monnerie’s town house. How romantic an edifice fa...

Mrs. Monnerie had rifled her collections for my use⁠—pygmy Venetian glass, a silver-gilt breakfast and tea service, pygmy porcelain. There were absurd little mechanical knickknacks⁠—piping birds, a ma...

Miss Monnerie’s visits were less punctual though more frequent than Percy Maudlen’s. “And where is the toadlet?” I heard him drawl one afternoon as I was being carried downstairs by the light-footed F...

Instead of its being a month as had been arranged, it was over six weeks before I was deposited again with my elegant dressing-case⁠—a mere flying visitor⁠—on Mrs. Bowater’s doorstep. A waft of cooked...

I trod close in Mrs. Bowater’s track as she convoyed me through a sea of greenery breaking here and there to my waist and even above my hat. Summer had been busy in Wanderslore. Honeysuckle and acid-s...

Time and circumstance have strangely divided me from the Miss M. of those days. I look back on her, not with shame, but with a shrug of my shoulders, a sort of incredulous tolerance⁠—almost as if she ...

Mrs. Bowater’s departure from England⁠—and it seemed as if its very map in my mind had become dismally empty⁠—was not my only anxiety. My solicitors had hitherto been prompt; their remittances almost ...

So it was with a deep sigh⁠—half of regret at being called away, and all of joy at the thought of seeing my old friend again⁠—that I followed Marvell’s coattails over the threshold. With a silly, anim...

In happier circumstances, the next morning’s post might have reassured me. Two letters straddled my breakfast tray, for I always had this meal in my own room. One of them was from Wanderslore⁠—a long,...

But a devil of defiance had entered into me. With a face as snakily sweet as I could make it, I made my daintiest bow to Mrs. Monnerie’s guests⁠—to Lord Chiltern, a tall, stiffish man, who blinked at ...

Susan’s visits to her aunt were now less frequent. Percy’s multiplied. Duty seemed to have become a pleasure to him. Mrs. Monnerie’s gaze would rest on him with a drowsy vigilance which it was almost ...

The fact is, Miss M.’s connection with good society was rapidly drawing to a close. My smoky little candle had long since begun to gutter and sputter and enwreathe itself in a winding sheet. It went o...

Thus then I came of age, though not on St. Rosa’s day. However dramatic and memorable, I grant it was not a courteous method of acknowledging Lord Chiltern’s courtesy. In the good old days the drunken...

Thus then I came of age, though not on St. Rosa’s day. However dramatic and memorable, I grant it was not a courteous method of acknowledging Lord Chiltern’s courtesy. In the good old days the drunken...

One such afternoon Rose and I were sitting quietly together in the sunshine on the green grass bank when a smart, short step sounded in the lane, and who should come springily pacing out of the countr...

Next day, after a long lying-in-wait, I intercepted Adam Waggett and beckoned him into the shrubbery. First I questioned him. A bill of the circus, he told me, had already been left at the lodge. Its ...

My showman, his hard face sleek with sweat, insisted on counting out three huge platelike crown pieces into my lap⁠—for a douceur. I brushed them off on to the ground. “Only to clinch the bargain,” he...

Her head was turned away from me, a striped parasol leaned over her shoulder. With a faintly defiant tilt of her beautiful head, as if exclaiming, “See, Strangeness, I come!” she stepped firmly on ove...

When next Fanny and I met, it was in the cool grey-green summery drawing-room at Monk’s House, and Mrs. Monnerie and Susan shared tea with us. One covert glance at Mrs. Monnerie’s face had reassured m...

I had been dismissed. But Mrs. Monnerie’s anger had a curious potency. For a moment I could scarcely see out of my eyes, and the floor swayed under me as I scrambled down from my chair. It took me at ...

I had been dismissed. But Mrs. Monnerie’s anger had a curious potency. For a moment I could scarcely see out of my eyes, and the floor swayed under me as I scrambled down from my chair. It took me at ...

But our brief hour was drawing to an end. We were now passing little groups of country people and children in the quiet evening. We ourselves talked no more. The old pony plodded up yet another hill; ...

Mrs. Monnerie had paid for elbow room. It was the last “Private View” in this world we were to share together. The sight of her capacious figure with its great bonnet and the broad, dark face beneath,...

Noiselessly turned the wheels in the grass. We were descending the hill. A jolt, and we were in the road. A hedgerow shut us out from the two shrouded watchers by the tent. The braying music fainted a...

The sun had burned for some hours in the heavens, when bleeding with thorns and on fire with nettles and stinking mayweed, I dragged myself out of the undergrowth into a low-lying corner of the desola...

And yet again I pause⁠—long after these last words were written⁠—to look back across the intervening years at that young woman. What, indeed, was her insane mind seeking: what assurance, reconciliatio...

And yet again I pause⁠—long after these last words were written⁠—to look back across the intervening years at that young woman. What, indeed, was her insane mind seeking: what assurance, reconciliatio...

To be truthful, this is not my family motto (nor crest); but the real motto seemed a little too satirical to share with Mrs. Monnerie; and however overweening its substitute may appear, I have now hop...