“ Next day, when Kimberley, preposterously overdressed and thoroughly ashamed of himself, was trying to talk business in Mr. Begg's office, the Earl of Windgall was announced. There was nothing in the world that could have terrified him more. And when the father of his ideal love, Lady Ella Santerre, shook him by the hand, he could only gasp and gurgle in response. But the earl's manner gradually reassured him, and in a little time he began to plume himself in harmless trembling vanity upon sitting in the same room with a nobleman and a great lawyer. ”

“ Sir Massingberd turned livid.
"To hear you talk one would think that I had tried to murder the boy," he said.
"I know you did!" cried Harvey Gerard solemnly. "To-day you sent your nephew forth upon that devil with a snaffle-bridle instead of a curb! See, I track your thoughts like slime. Base ruffian, begone from beneath this roof, false coward!"
Sir Massingberd started up like one stung by an adder.
"Yes, I say coward!" continued Harvey Gerard. "Heavens, that this creature should still feel touch of shame! Be off, be off; molest not anyone within this house at peril of your life! Murderer!" ”

“ Give thy sister to the heir of Burgundy, and forgive me if I depart to the castle of Middleham. Yet think well. Henry of Windsor is thy prisoner, but his cause lives in Margaret and his son. There is but one power in Europe that can threaten thee with aid to the Lancastrians. That power is France. Make Louis thy friend and ally, and thou givest peace to thy life and thy lineage. Make Louis thy foe, and count on plots and stratagems and treason. Edward, my loved, my honoured liege, forgive Richard Nevile for his bluntness, and let not his faults stand in bar of his counsels. ”

“ The Church of the Capuchins in Madrid had never witnessed a more numerous assembly than that which gathered to hear the sermon of Ambrosio, the abbot. All Madrid rang with his praises. Brought mysteriously to the abbey door while yet an infant, he had remained for all the thirty years of his life within its precincts. All his days had been spent in seclusion, study, and mortification of the flesh; his knowledge was profound, his eloquence most persuasive; his only fault was an excess of severity in judging the human feelings from which he himself was exempted. ”

“ Chicago, the great grey city, interested Laura at every instant and under every condition. The life was tremendous. All around, on every side, in every direction, the vast machinery of commonwealth clashed and thundered from dawn to dark, and from dark to dawn. For thousands of miles beyond its confines the influence of the city was felt. At times Laura felt a little frightened at the city's life, and of the men for whom all the crash of conflict and commerce had no terrors. Those who could subdue this life to their purposes, must they not be themselves terrible, pitiless, brutal? ”

“ Then Sir Gawaine, after he had been shriven, wrote with his own hand to Sir Launcelot, flower of all noble knights: "I beseech thee, Sir Launcelot, return again to this realm, and see my tomb, and pray some prayer more or less for my soul. Make no tarrying but come with thy noble knights and rescue that noble king that made thee knight, for he is straitly bestood with a false traitor." And so Sir Gawaine betook his soul into the hands of our Lord God.
And many a knight drew unto Sir Mordred and many unto King Arthur, and never was there seen a dolefuller battle in a Christian land. ”

“ To him the world was one vast prison to which the sovereign of Rome was the imperial gaoler, and the very virtues which, in the free days of Athens, would have made him ambitious, in the slavery of earth made him inactive and supine.
"Tell me, Clodius," said the Athenian at last, "hast thou ever been in love?"
"Yes, very often."
"He who has loved often," answered Glaucus, "has loved never." ”

“ Is there, indeed, no hope?"
"There is but one means of life in my power--a dangerous and dreadful means; life would be purchased at too dear a rate--unless it were permitted me to live for you."
"Then live for me," cried the infatuated monk, clasping her in his arms. "Live for me!"
"Then," she cried joyfully, "no dangers shall appall me. Swear that you will never inquire by what means I shall preserve myself, and procure for me the key of the burying-ground common to us and the sisterhood of St. Clare."
When Ambrosio had obtained the key, Matilda left him. ”

“ Life petted him and pampered him; lodged him like a prince, dined him like a king, and had never let him feel the want of all that is bought by money. How could he understand that he was not as rich a man as his oldest and closest comrade, Lord Rockingham, a Colossus, known as "the Seraph," the eldest son of the Duke of Lyonesse?
A quarrel with his father (whom he always alluded to as "Royal") reminded him that he was ruined; that he would get no help from the old lord, or from his elder brother, the heir. ”

“ Beaten--beaten at last, the Great Bull! Smashed! The great corner smashed! Jadwin busted! Cheer followed cheer, hats went into the air. Men danced and leaped in a frenzy of delight.
Young Landry Court, who had stood by Jadwin in the Pit, led his defeated captain out. Jadwin was in a daze--he saw nothing, heard nothing, but submitted to Landry's guidance.
From the Pit came the sound of dying cheers.
"They can cheer now all they want. They didn't do it," said a man at the door. "It was the wheat itself that beat him; no combination of men could have done it." ”

“ Who ranks the man above his station, or the soul above the man?"
"Now we have come to it!" cried Mr. Grand. "I thought I should touch the secret spring at last! And you would like us to associate with you as equals--is that it, Joshua? Gentlemen and common men hob-and-nob together, and no distinctions made? You to ride in our carriages, and perhaps marry our daughters?"
"That's just it, sir. You are gentlemen, as you say, but not the followers of Christ. ”

“ The earl seized the papers and rescued them, soiled but unsinged.
"Kimberley," he said, "I dare not lay myself under such an obligation to any man alive."
"They are yours, my lord," replied Kimberley. "I shall never touch them again. You're under no obligation to me, my lord. But"--he blushed and stammered--"I want to ask you for the hand of Lady Ella."
It took Windgall a full minute to pull himself together. He had schooled himself to the trembling hope that Alice might be chosen; but Ella! ”

“ While Walter Lester and Corporal Bunting were passing northward, the squire of Grassdale saw, with evident complacency, the passion growing up between his friend and his daughter. He looked upon it as a tie that would permanently reconcile Aram to the hearth of social and domestic life; a tie that would constitute the happiness of his daughter and secure to himself a relation in the man he felt most inclined of all he knew to honour and esteem. Aram seemed another man; and happy indeed was Madeline in the change. ”

“ When he was well enough he was told to go to the midshipman's berth, and Jack, who now felt excessively hungry, crawled over and between chests until he found himself in a hole infinitely inferior to the dog-kennels which received his father's pointers.
"I'd not only give up the ocean," thought Jack, "and my share of it, but also my share of the Harpy, unto anyone who fancies it. Equality enough here, for everyone appears equally miserably off." ”

“ Follow me, all ye hermits who through some mortification in love, some negligence in friendship, have withdrawn into your rooms far from the pettiness and infidelity of mankind! But quit your dismal thoughts, I pray you. Every minute you lose some pleasure without gaining any wisdom in place of it. Deign to accompany me on my travels. We shall go by easy stages, laughing all along the road at every tourist who has gone to Rome or Paris. No obstacle shall stop us, and, surrendering ourselves to our imagination, we will follow it wherever it may lead us. ”

“ He thinks he shall write father's life, when we are settled in a new home. We are to be cleared out o' this in alle haste; for the king grutches at our lingering over father's footsteps, and yet when the news of the bloody deed was taken to him, he scowled at Queen Anne, saying, "Thou art the cause of this man's death!"
Flow on, bright shining Thames. A good, brave man hath walked aforetime on your margent, himself as bright, and usefull, and delightsome as you, sweet river. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. ”

“ She told how Agnes had been secretly poisoned by the prioress. The mob, mad with indignation, rushed to the convent determined to destroy it. Lorenzo and the officers hastened to endeavour to do what they could to save the convent and the terrified nuns who had taken refuge there.
Antonia's heart throbbed, her eyes opened; she raised herself and cast a wild look around her. Her clothing was a shroud; she lay in a coffin among other coffins in a damp and hideous vault. Confronting her with a lantern in his hand, and eyeing her greedily, stood Ambrosio. ”

“ Don Luis then went away, and Aurora slipped into her cavalier's costume and met him at the inn.
"My dear Felix," said Don Luis, "your cousin is an adorable lady. I'm madly in love with her. If I can only win her, I'll marry and settle down on my estates."
Aurora gazed at him very tenderly, and then, with a gay laugh, she shook off her wig and let her curls fall about her shoulders.
Don Felix knelt at her feet and kissed her hands, crying, "Oh, my beautiful Aurora! Do you really care for me? How happy we shall be together!" ”

“ In the silence of the general sleep Nydia had risen gently. Bending over the face of Glaucus, she softly kissed him. She felt for his hand; it was locked in that of Ione. She sighed deeply, and her face darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night.
"May the gods bless you, Athenian!" she murmured "May you be happy with your beloved one! May you sometimes remember Nydia! Alas! she is of no further use on earth." ”

“ Next door lives a carpenter, "famed ten miles around, and worthy all his fame," with his excellent wife and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the village--a child three years old according to the register, but six in size and strength and intellect, in power and self-will. She manages everybody in the place; makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to her, and the grave to romp with her. Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of loving, and her firm reliance on the love and the indulgence of others. ”

“ Having girded on his sword, he went forth to hear mass, without saying a word about breakfast. "Who would believe," I said, observing his erect bearing and air of gentility as he walked up the street, "that such a fine gentleman had passed the whole of yesterday without any other food than a morsel of bread? How many are there in this world who voluntarily suffer more for their false idea of honour, than they would undergo for their hopes of an hereafter!" ”

“ At this instant a curtain was rudely torn aside, and Glaucus and Apsecides appeared. There was a severe struggle, which might have had a more sinister ending had not the marble head of a goddess, shaken from its column, fallen upon Arbaces as he was about to stab the Greek, and struck the Egyptian senseless to the ground. As it was, Ione was saved, and she and her lover were then and for ever reconciled to one another. ”

“ Men have forgotten the gods. We don't even get a handful of wheat to make a cake; not a grain of incense, not a drop of oil for the lamps. There's nothing for it but to go to bed and die.... The monks have taken everything.... Our tale is told.... And you say 'don't drink.' But it's hard not to drink when one suffers. If I didn't drink I should have hanged myself long ago."
"And no one has come from Antioch for this great feast day?" asked Julian.
"None but you, my son. I am the priest, you are the people! Together we will offer the victim to the god. It is my own offering. ”

“ The service was performed with the same simplicity as would have been observed at a pauper's wedding. The dreary music troubled the duke, and reminded him of his father's funeral, when his aunt and cousins wept with him. He was now alone. Separated for ever from the dear ones who had been so kind to him, he compared Philippe's conduct with his own, and, turning his eyes to Claire, divined that she wept. A light broke on him; he realised the ironmaster's true position, and decided he might revenge himself very sweetly.
"She weeps," he said to himself. "She hates that man, and still loves me." ”

“ Cigarette was the pet of the army of Africa, and was as lawless as most of her patrons. She was the Friend of the Flag. Soldiers had been about her from her cradle. They had been her books, her teachers, her guardians, and, later on, her lovers, all the days of her life. She had no sense of duty taught her, except to face fire boldly, never to betray a comrade, and to worship but two deities--"la Gloire" and "la France." Her own sex would have seen no good in her, but her comrades-in-arms could, and did. ”

“ Father Phil, the kindly, jovial parish priest, who had come to help James and Matty "tie with their tongues the knot they couldn't undo with their teeth," had not broken his fast that day, and wanted the feast to go on. To the great surprise of the company, Matty backed him, and full of life and spirits, began to lay the dinner. For some time the hungry guests were busy with the good cheer provided for them, but the women at last asked in loud whispers, "Where in the world is James Casey?" Still the bride kept up her smiles, but old Jack Dwyer's face grew blacker and blacker. ”

“ For he was a witness of the parting of Jack and Ella. He saw the tears streaming from her eyes; he heard Jack tell her that he had never loved another woman and never would. As they clasped each other's hands for the final good-bye, Jack seized her passionately and kissed her. Her head fell back from his shoulder; she had fainted. He laid her down upon the grass, and looked upon her in an agony of fear and self-reproach. ”