Short Fiction quotes

Of his wife, however, nothing was known, nor could be discovered, so she was set down, and perhaps justly, as having been an English governess in some French family, and as such, most probably, Mr. Warden had first known her.

“What men can see in dolls to induce them to marry them, I cannot see,” pursued the dowager, “they simply need a glass case, some good clothes, and their work in life is done.”

Nevertheless, in spite of Lady Nugent’s comments, Mrs. Warden had been well received in Harleyford for her husband’s sake, and now, in the time of her sorrow, nothing could exceed the kindness and sympathy extended to her on all sides.

Then she turns her basket upside down.

“They won’t believe it’s all gone, Brownie,” she says, releasing the dog, “till they see it bottom upwards.”

The sunlight glances and quivers through the aspens and alders which skirt the lawn; behind them babbles and tumbles a narrow running brook, while the semicircle of the mountains in the distance forms a glorious background to the picture.

Lettice does not take the offered hand; she is still (on her knees now) busy manipulating Brownie’s collar.

“Brownie’s curls are too long, Dr. Herron,” she begins apologetically; “they almost hide his new collar; I think I must cut them off; he is looking quite effeminate.”

“Can I be of any service, Miss Tremarten?”

“To London!” echoes the doctor in blank amazement, and Lettice, with her hair rippling over her eyes, enjoys his surprise. “To London, Miss Tremarten! Do you really mean to tell me that your father has given his consent to your going?”

“Oh no,” replies Lettice blithely, “no one has given any consent at present, for,” she adds slyly, “it hasn’t been asked; but of course I am going, because I have arranged it all in my own mind, and whatever I arrange always does happen.”

Dr. Herron stands a long three minutes silent and thoughtful.

“What way?” he mutters.

“By Jove! I’d just as soon be bullied by a wife as a sister.”

“Don’t be rude, Ivie,” Lilla rejoins. “You ought to be grateful to me for taking so much trouble. I don’t know another sister who would stand what I’ve stood for you.

I was saying, if you think you can manage this little affair by yourself by all means do so, but it you want my assistance I am quite willing to take the unpleasant part off your hands.”

“If they allowed petticoats in Parliament, by Jove! you’d make yourself a name,” mutters the captain.

“You have so far done the pleasant part to perfection, with your looks of intense admiration and the rapt attention you have paid to her silly schoolgirlish talk. I believe the girl is in love with you without knowing it.

The day for the archery fête dawned in brilliant blue sky and golden sunshine, and, best of all, without even the rustle of a soft south wind.

“Of course the irreproachable earl will think of the immaculate tenants,” said Lettice to her aunts as she buckled on her waistbelt and counted up her arrows.

“I only hope there won’t be a crowd.”

They were no sooner on the doormat than the door was shut behind them, and the bolt sent into its socket with a pronounced clang.

“Heavens and earth,” they could hear him groan, “what it is to be the head of the family!”

Nellie and Cousin Lavinia looked at each other.

“An’ if I would I could tell a tale.” Lady Glencross had passed upon herself and her career a slightly different verdict, when some eight years previously she had put off her widow’s weeds after wearing them for the conventional two years.

“I live on, the anticlimax to my own story,” she had said to herself as she donned her laces and jewellery once more.

“From a poetic point of view I ought to have died when my love and my faith in man died. Yet here am I, never more alive than I am today; never before more ready to enjoy dress, dancing, opera, play, yachting—everything!

His words had come in a torrent; ended, they left him almost breathless.

Rhea gazed up at him wonderingly. So, then, love might mean something other than a grasping, a holding and a keeping against all heaven and all earth! Sometimes it might mean a leaving and a letting go.

Her hands clasped together nervously. “My poor, poor boy,” she began once more.

“Did God ever mould a more dainty, exquisitely lovely child-angel? And she is mine—mine only! Mine forever!”

Drifting, drifting, drifting, easily, lightly, pleasantly over the swaying waves, they went.

Now into the pathway of silver light that the moon threw athwart the waters, anon into the black shadows of the gaunt mountains, which here and there kissed the opposite shore.