“ Before Tom left for the East old Mark Armsworth took him aside, and said, "What do you think of the man who marries my daughter?"
"I should think," quoth Tom, wondering who the happy man could be, "that he would be lucky in possessing such a heart."
"Then be as good as your word, and take her yourself. I've watched you, and you'll make her a good husband."
Tom was too astonished and puzzled to reply. He had never thought that he had found such favour in his old playfellow Mary Armsworth's eyes. ”

“ Nevertheless, when the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom mounted upon a camel, and with their attendants, set out for their desert honeymoon. Standing before the door of the church, the good priest watched them go, with fear in his heart, and that night in his humble home, kneeling before his crucifix, he prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in the desert.
Isolated from all who knew them, free from all social ties, nomads, as are the Bedouins who make their dwelling for ever amid the vast and burning sands, Domini and Androvsky entered upon their married life. ”

“ I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself and our Cousin Jaffrey, the judge. And yet I seem to have heard the name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes, from my father, or my mother. But hasn't he been dead a long while?"
"Well, well, child, perhaps he has," said Hepzibah, with a sad, hollow laugh; "but in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again. And, Cousin Phoebe, if your courage does not fail you, we will not part soon. You are welcome to such a home as I can offer you." ”

“ It was only when the crowd had carried away the Lord of Misrule in triumph that they understood that the grimace was the hunchback's natural face. In fact, the entire man was a grimace. Humpbacked, an enormous head, with bristles of red hair; broad feet, huge hands, crooked legs; and, with all this deformity, a wonderful vigour, agility, and courage. Such was the newly chosen Lord of Misrule--a giant broken to pieces and badly mended.
He was recognised by the crowd in the streets, and shouts went up.
"It is Quasimodo, the bell-ringer! Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame!" ”

“ On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a verandah of the Hotel du Désert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria, gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of sunset. The bell of the Catholic Church chimed. She heard the throbbing of native drums in the village near by. Tired with her long journey from England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.
Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental agony. ”

“ The stranger, who was to Gilliatt only a shadow, spoke. A voice issued from the trees, softer than the voice of a woman; yet it was the voice of a man. Gilliatt heard many words, then, "Mademoiselle, you are poor; since this morning I am rich. Will you have me for your husband? I love you. God made not the heart of man to be silent. He has promised him eternity with the intention that he should not be alone. There is for me but one woman on the earth; it is you. ”

“ Arthur Dimmesdale!" she cried out.
"Who speaks?" answered the minister. "Hester! Hester Prynne! Is it thou?" He fixed his eyes upon her and added, "Hester, hast thou found peace?"
"Hast thou?" she asked.
"None! Nothing but despair! What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine?"
"You wrong yourself in this," said Hester gently. "Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past. But Arthur, an enemy dwellest with thee, under the same roof. That old man--the physician, whom they call Roger Chillingworth--he was my husband! Forgive me. Let God punish!" ”

“ From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.
"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah." ”

“ Lost in the maze of happiness that surrounded her, Miss Milner oftentimes asked her heart, "Are not my charms even more invincible than I ever believed them to be? Dorriforth, the grave, the pious, the anchorite Dorriforth, by their force is animated to all the ardour of the most impassioned lover; while the proud priest, the austere guardian, is humbled, if I but frown, into the veriest slave of love." ”

“ From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her. Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious woman. She put God above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love, above Androvsky and his passionate love for her. She put the things of eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the child that was coming.
After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven. ”

“ But before Jean Valjean died Marius learnt the whole truth of the heroic life of the old man who had rescued him from the lost barricade. For the first time he realised that Jean Valjean had come to the barricade only to save him, knowing him to be in love with Cosette.
He hastened with Cosette to Jean Valjean's room; but the old man's last hour had come.
"Come closer, come closer, both of you," he cried. "I love you so much. It is good to die like this! You love me too, my Cosette. I know you've always had a fondness for the poor old man. And you, M. Pontmercy, will always make Cosette happy. ”

“ That night the little country cousin, Phoebe Pyncheon, arrived at the gloomy old house. Hepzibah knew that circumstances made it desirable for the girl to establish herself in another home, but she was reluctant to bid her stay.
"Phoebe," she said, on the following morning, "this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young person to be in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in the winter time; but it never lets in the sunshine! And as for myself, you see what I am--a dismal and lonesome old woman, whose temper is none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be. ”

“ Phoebe and Holgrave were in the house together when the brother and sister returned, and Holgrave had told her of the judge's sudden death. Then, in that hour so full of doubt and awe, the one miracle was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank, and the bliss which makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around this youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad or old.
Presently the voices of Clifford and Hepzibah were heard at the door, and when they entered Clifford appeared the stronger of the two. ”

“ At last when full four years were passed and gone since Tom started for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail at Whitbury, with a serene and healthful countenance, shouldered his carpet-bag, and started for his father's house.
He walked in, and hung up his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk. Not finding the old man, he went into Mark Armsworth's, frightening out of her wits a pale, ugly girl of seventeen, whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. ”

“ On earth she had deliberately set herself to win and to break the heart of a trusting lad, and the punishment of her sin was that she should now love him with the same intense but hopeless passion with which he had loved her. "My heart is broken," I heard her sob, "and in hell one cannot die of a broken heart. If I had loved him, and he me, and he had died, I could have borne it, knowing that I should meet him hereafter; but to live loveless through eternity, that is the thought which kills me." ”

“ Bideford streets are a very flower-garden of all the colours, swarming with seamen and burghers and burghers' wives and daughters, all in their holiday attire. Garlands are hung across the streets and tapestries from every window. Every stable is crammed with horses, and Sir Richard Grenville's house is like a very tavern. Along the little churchyard streams all the gentle blood of North Devon, and on into the church, where all are placed according to their degrees, not without shovings and whisperings from one high-born matron and another. ”

“ Dorriforth loves you himself, and it is jealousy which makes him treat me in this way!"
"For shame, my lord!" cried Miss Woodley, trembling with horror at the sacrilegious idea.
"Nay, shame to him if he is not in love!" answered his lordship. "For who but a savage could behold beauty like yours without owning its power? And surely when your guardian looks at you, his wishes------"
"Are never less pure," Miss Milner replied eagerly, "than those which dwell in the bosom of my celestial guardian." ”

“ The cathedral is packed with people of all degrees, known and unknown, friends and strangers. The thought that all these will soon know his shame turns Cyril sick. The faces of all those he has injured rise and reproach him. He goes through another great spiritual conflict, but his soul emerges at last, stripped of all pretence, in the awful presence of his Maker, shuddering with the shame of its uncovered sin, and alone. ”

“ Finding that Lord Frederick had gone when he had resigned the care of his ward to Miss Woodley, Dorriforth returned to his own apartment with a bosom torn by excruciating sensations. He had departed from his sacred character, and the dignity of his profession and sentiments; he had treated with unpardonable insult a young nobleman whose only offence was love; he had offended and filled with horror a beautiful young woman whom it was his duty to protect from those brutal manners to which he himself had exposed her. ”

“ Away goes the Tally-ho into the darkness.
Tom stands up, and looks back at his father's figure as long as you can see it; and then comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations for facing the cold three hours before dawn. The guard muffles Tom's feet up in straw, and puts an oat-sack over his knees, but it is not until after breakfast that his tongue is unloosed, and he rubs up his memory, and launches out into a graphic history of all the performances of the Rugby boys on the roads for the last twenty years. ”

“ Mary and Miss Thornton had stayed with the Buckleys till good Cousin Tom had got a house ready for them--a charming house covered with creepers, and backed by huts, sheep-yards, and all the usual concomitants of a flourishing Australian sheep-station. This is Toonarbin, where Mary Hawker is living with her son Charles as happy and uninteresting an existence as ever fell to the lot of a handsome woman yet. The old dark days seem like a bad dream. She had heard of her husband's re-conviction and life sentence--finally death, and George Hawker is as one who has never lived. ”

“ And now, in the garden of Count Anteoni, which has passed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing.
Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls him to her, to the white wall from which she looks out over the desert.
"Listen, Boris," she whispers.
The little boy leans his face against her breast, and obeys.
An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing to himself, as he goes towards his home in the oasis, "No one but God and I knows what is in my heart." ”

“ But as the squire walked back to his hotel he was deeply moved at the Radical views his son now held. He could not understand these new notions of young men, and thought them mischievous and bad. At the same time, he was too fair a man to try to dragoon his son out of anything which he really believed. The fact had begun to dawn on the squire that the world had changed a good deal since his time; while Tom, on his part, valued his father's confidence and love above his own opinions. ”

“ I recollect only an ethereal lightness of limb, and a sense of soul-emancipation and peace, a sense of soul-emancipation such as one might feel were he to awaken on a sunny summer morning to find that sorrow and sin were gone from the world for ever, a peace ample and restful as the hallowed hush and awe of twilight, without the twilight's tender pain. ”

“ Meanwhile, Frank Masterton, or Lord Masterton as he now was, was living what he had fondly imagined would be the ideal life with the girl he loved; but already he found it an illusion. His loss of honour, his consciousness that his conduct was discreditable, plunged him into bitter fits of remorse, from which he vainly sought relief by a round of gaiety. Lady Eleanor saw these signs with terror and despair. ”