ed Commercial Spanish at Skerry's College, and sat down in the hall to take her boots off

d that awful thing. But she must not tell her mother, who would only be fretted by it and ask like a little anxious mouse, "You're sure you've not said anything, dear? You're sure you've been a careful girl with your work, dear?" and would brace herself with h

Mrs. Melville, coming out with the cocoa-jug in her h

been left a fort

dred pounds that's all we can expect. But there's something fine wai

g open t

thed Ellen. "

e world except one man would have jeered at her, and she put her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her, though she knew the gift could not have come from her. The flowers were beautiful in so many ways. They were beautiful just as roses, because "roses" is such a lovely word; as clear patches of red and white because red and white are such lovely colours; and because a red rose has so str

otected themselves against the cold weather

ing but necessities; and they showed, since they blossomed here though the rain roared down outside, that the world was not after all an immutably un

ere did the

Mrs. Melvil

u went out and pawned the family

to convey to me that he wasn't used to coming to such a place. He wore a look like a missionary in Darkest Africa. They were left for Miss Melvill

read over the roses,

he said sulkily. "If he'd money to burn he

, are you n

us up with flowers as if we were a

to ladies they admire. When your Aunt Bessie and I were girls many

kes me feel like a hospital. He'll be sending us ne

makes you turn up your nose at bonny flowers that a decent fellow sends you I'm sorry for you-it's jus

they were coming so certainly that she need not fret about them any more than one frets about a parcel that one knows has been posted, or concerning some desires, as if it did not matter so much as she had thought whether she got them or not. Especially that dream of being one of a company of men and women whose bodies should be grave as elms with dignity and whose words should be bright as butterflies with wit struck her as being foolish. It was as idle as wanting to be born in the days of Queen Elizabeth. What she really wanted was a friend. She had felt the need of one since Rachael Wing went to London. Surely Richard Yaverland meant to be her friend, si

was bidding her with an offended briskness to sit forward and eat her meal while

ny comes our way that I do think we m

an't think what

e sometimes terribly like your fa

er, looking up from t

d for them. Carbonic acid is

young, though we didn't talk about carbonic acid. But if you don't see them by gaslight yo

m by day, and let the poor things last. I must c

do if we brought in the two candles and turned out the gas? It'll be

white petals, and a drapery of darkness about the mean walls of the room, and a thickening of the atmosphere which h

impart to her sad remarks, as if she wanted to remove any impression that she respected the fate t

ve before,"