The Long Vacation

ves and pain

, for the ne

rendered, a

pelled in the

h is waged et

boy! There you

yes, came bounding up the broad stair, to the embrace of the aunt who stood at the top, a little lame lady supported by an ivory-headed staff. Her deep b

You are well?

w are they all

to Anna Vanderkist, a young person of the plump partridge order

flowers," as the but

a bunch of those dear white violets. I know where they came fro

tight bunches like cauliflowers, I d

t," said Mrs. Grinstead, picking out the few spared from politic

ced to button-h

dinner, and will sleep here,

e, whatever

, and drink tea. I am going to read to

drawing-room not professionally artistic, but entirely domestic, and full of grace and ch

e Lance has cheered

r is really

hey came near him with their worries, they should never see a fart

e great agitation. They want to set up a china clay factory on Penb

But they can'

dnet's farm, for which they make astounding bids; but, any way, nothing can be done till I am of age, w

twenty. But surely

ally, but why should all that space be nothing but a playgrou

"You born Yankee! Don't worry Aunt Cherry about profaning

ch groovy people as you are! I shall think it over,

ll five-and-twenty, so as

e'er-do-weel second son of an old family. When Gerald was five years old his father was killed, and he himself severely injured, in a raid of the Indians far west, and he was brought home by an old

ok leave of them, still sorrowing under the loss of the main pilla

elded to the persevering constancy of Mr. Grinstead, a sculptor of considerable genius and repute, much older than herself, who was ready and

came in, old ones went to found fresh branches; stricter rules grew, up, and were enforced by a Superior out of sympathy with the girl, who had always rebelled against what she thought dictation. It was decided that she could stay there no longer, and her brother Lancelot and his wife received her at Marshlands with indignant sympathy for her wrongs; but neither she nor her sister-in-law were made to suit one another. With liberty her spirit and audacity revived, and she showed so much attraction

s, whom Mr. Grinstead knew just well enough not to be able to shake them off. The climax came when she started off with them in costume at daybreak on an expedition to play the zither and sing at a village fete.

restraint, and as if the yearly birth of a daughter left him the more free to waste his patrimony. Little or nothing had been heard direct from poor Alda till Clement was summoned by

ucid interval to direct and sign a hurried will, drawn up by his steward, leaving the Reverend Edward Clement Underwood sole guardian to his children, and executor, together with hi

and more of an invalid, and dreaded that their father should take umbrage at the least expense that they caused; so that they were scrupulously kept out of his way, fed, dressed, and even educated as plainly as possible

ined sorrow, alarm, and silence after the governess had despatched the message to the only relati

were even more desolate, for they had no past of love and loyalty. But with that embrace it seemed to the four elders that their worst days were over. What mattered it to them that they all eight of them-were almost desti

ntinued a chronic invalid, watched over by her sister Wilmet and her excellent young daughter Mary. Robina, who had only one girl, and had not forgotten her training as a teacher, undertook, with the assistance of Sophia, the second daughter, the education of the little ones; and the third and fourth, Emilia and Ann

society, and she had utterly disdained all restraints from "the babies," as she chose to call Mr. and Mrs. Audley, and thus the w

could stay no longer, kissed her, and was gone out of the house before even Charles could be called. Stella's anxiety, almost despair, h

ared arms to her. She said, "Is that the scar of the scald?" and his only answer was the call "Angela! Angela!" and with the voice still sounding in her ears, she awoke, and determined instantly to obey the call, coming to her, as she felt, from another world. If it were only from her own conscience,

d were devoted to her, and so were almost all the young doctors; but the matron did not like her, and at the end of the three years, an act of independent treatment o

dance, and just at the end of the year there came an urgent request for a Sister from England to form a foundation in one of the new cities of Australia on the model of St. Faith's; and th

ritualistic, and those connected with the Vanderkist affairs, where his sister did not spare him her murmurs. Fulbert's death in Australia was a blow both to Lanc

r a desolation. On her return to Brompton, she had still been in a passive state, as though the taste of life had gone from her, and there was nothing to call forth her interest or energy. The first thing that roused her was the dangerous illness of her brother Clement, the result of blood-poisoning during a mission week in a pestilential locality, after a long course of family worries and overwork in his parish. Low, lingering fever had threatened every organ in turn, ti