Mr. Gresham

“ Every man with whom he has ever done business, except possibly yourself, speaks highly of him and would trust him to any extent; and he does not owe a dollar in the world."
"Doesn't he?" snarled Gresham. "There's an unsatisfied attachment for fifteen thousand dollars resting against him at the Fourth National Bank at this very moment."
Loring's indignation gave way immediately to grave concern.
"So that's why Close was trying to get him on the 'phone all afternoon!" he mused.
"Mr. Gresham," called Polly sharply, "how do you come to know about this so quickly?" ”

“ Bonteen, "than the attack made upon Mr. Bonteen the night before last?" Phineas could see a smile on Madame Goesler's face as the question was asked;—for she knew, and he knew that she knew, how great was the antipathy between him and the Bonteens.
"The attack was upon Mr. Gresham, I thought," said Phineas.
"Oh, yes; nominally. But of course everybody knows what was meant. Upon my word there is twice more jealousy among men than among women. Is there not, Madame Goesler?"
"I don't think any man could be more jealous than I am myself," said Madame Goesler. ”

“ Perhaps I had better tell you the truth, Mr. Gresham."
"Oh, certainly," said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of disagreeable truths. ”

“ But even yet he did not do so.
'A fool of myself! Yes; I suppose I must be a fool if I have so much regard for Miss Dunstable as to make it painful to me to know that I am to see her no more: a fool: yes, of course I am a fool—a man is always a fool when he loves.'
Miss Dunstable could not pretend to doubt his meaning any longer; and was determined to stop him, let it cost what it would. She now put out her hand, not over white, and, as Frank soon perceived, gifted with a very fair allowance of strength.
'Now, Mr. Gresham,' said she, 'before you go any further you shall listen to me. ”

“ Mr. Gresham, as he told me, always sat in the same seat, and the tortures he suffered when so seated, the dislocations of his property which he was forced to discuss, the operations on his very self which he was forced to witness, made me regard that room as worse than the chamber of Udolpho. He, luckily—a rare instance of good fortune—had lived to see all his bones and joints put together again, and flourishing soundly; but he never could speak of the room without horror.
"No consideration on earth," he once said to me, very solemnly, "I say none, should make me again enter that room." ”

“ The father again sat silent, still sipping his wine. There was nothing in his son that he could be ashamed of, nothing that he could meet with anger, nothing that he could not love; but how should he answer him? The fact was, that the son had more in him than the father; that his mind and spirit were of a calibre not to be opposed successfully by the mind and spirit of the squire.
'Do you know Mary's history?' said Mr. Gresham, at last; 'the history of her birth?'
'Not a word of it,' said Frank. ”

“ Frank was of course obliged to promise that he would do so.
'You are going—or rather you were going, for I shall stop you—to make to me a profession of love.'
'A profession!' said Frank, making a slight unsuccessful effort to get his hand free.
'Yes; a profession—a false profession, Mr. Gresham,—a false profession—a false profession. Look into your heart—into your heart of hearts. I know you at any rate have a heart; look into it closely. Mr. Gresham, you know you do not love me; not as a man should love the woman whom he swears to love.'
Frank was taken aback. ”

“ So exclaimed, in her gratitude, the Lady Arabella; to speak the truth, however, but for the de Courcys, Mr Gresham might have been at this moment on the top of Boxall Hill, monarch of all he surveyed.
"As I was saying," continued the countess, "I never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury; but yet, my dear, the hounds can't have eaten up everything. A man with ten thousand a year ought to be able to keep hounds ”

“ In this frame of mind he walked up South Audley Street, and crossed one side of Grosvenor Square, and went almost mechanically into Green Street. At the farther end of Green Street, near to Park Lane, lived Mr. and Mrs. Harold Smith.
CHAPTER XXVIII. DR. THORNE.
When Miss Dunstable met her friends, the Greshams—young Frank Gresham and his wife—at Gatherum Castle, she immediately asked after one Dr. ”

“ We had occasionally official banquets, but they were very dull compared to those to which we had formerly been accustomed, while no maskers or mummers were allowed to present themselves. As may be supposed, the arrival of Sir Thomas Gresham and Aveline Radford produced a very pleasant change. As Aveline had been advised to take horse exercise, she rode out, by the desire of Sir Thomas, every day; and A’Dale and I were her constant attendants, Madam Clough occasionally accompanying her, while Mistress Margery was always her companion. ”

“ We then proceeded to Osterley House, a beautiful residence which Sir Thomas had lately purchased, ten miles out of London. On the approach of our cavalcade, Lady Anne hurried down to welcome her husband and son, as well as Aveline, with open arms. I saw her countenance fall as her eyes rested on Richard. She, at a glance, discovered, what his father had yet scarcely done, that he was greatly altered; for he had become daily weaker since we left Antwerp. The best physicians from London were called in, but they could give no hope to the fond parents ”

“ I came, however, to this terrible place in the hopes of being able to assist some poor person who might perchance escape the flames. Many of those I loved on earth have been cut off during the late unhappy reign, and I have devoted myself to soothe and comfort those who are about to suffer, or those who might escape death.”
The lady now asked me in what direction Aveline desired to go. I told her to Master Gresham’s house in Lombard Street. ”

“ Master Gresham received Ernst very kindly, but admonished him to be careful in future, and on no account to allow himself to be led away by his feelings, or to mingle in any popular disturbance. “Patience and forbearance will, in the end, gain more than haste and violence,” he observed. “It is seldom that a short road can be found to any great object—at least, if that object is to be secured permanently. ”

“ Lady Gresham has one there now. Miss Leighton may be all Reginald thinks she is, but if she puts herself in the position of an employee she must expect an employee’s fare, and not thrust herself upon first-class people. 104You will only pay second-class for her if she goes there.”
Lady Gresham and the English and paying second-class were influencing Mrs. Hallam mightily, but a dread of Rex, who when roused in the cause of oppression would not be pleasant to meet, kept her hesitating, until Bertha herself settled the matter. ”

“ As soon as the last trace of daylight had vanished, Dr. Gresham, equipped with a pair of powerful binoculars, appeared on deck, accompanied by an aviator. He said nothing about where he was going; and, knowing his moods so intimately, I realized it was useless to seek information until he volunteered it. But he handed me a large sealed envelope, remarking:
"I am going for a trip that may take all night. In case I should not return by sun-up you will know something has happened to me, and you are to open this envelope and have Commander Mitchell act upon the instructions it contains." ”

“ He told me that a villain who goes by the name of Martin has laid a plot to rob this house, and either to carry off Sir Thomas Gresham or to murder him. As he is a cunning villain, it is too likely that he will carry out his plans, if care is not taken to guard against them.”
I warmly thanked Captain Rover for this information, and begged that he would allow me to bring him to Sir Thomas. He thanked me, but declined seeing my patron. ”

“ Hallam and had felt drawn to her, but was too much absorbed in her own matters to have any time for a stranger. She was a natural flirt, and, although so plain, always managed to have, as she said, two or three idiots dangling on her string. Just now it was a young Englishman, the grandson of old Lady Gresham, whom she had upon her string, greatly to the disgust of her mother, with whom she was not often in perfect accord.
Linking her arm in Bertha’s as they went down the stairs, she continued, “Are you going to walk? I am, up the hill. Come with me. ”

“ As Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom passed the Bascom Place on his way home, after gathering from Major Jimmy Bass all the news and gossip of the town, he heard Mr. Francis Underwood, the owner of the Place, walking up and down the piazza, singing. Mr. Underwood appeared to be in a cheerful mood, and he had a right to be. He was young,—not more than thirty,—full of life, and the world was going on very well with him. Mr. Grissom paused a moment and listened; then he made up his mind to go in and have a chat with the young man. He opened the gate and went up the avenue under the cedars and Lombardy poplars. ”

“ Griscom. “And the cellar window—the one on the east side of the house—had been broken out of.”
“Why not broken into?” asked the Marshal.
“Well, I’m not quite a fool,” said Mr. Griscom with some heat. “I know because of the marks his jimmy made on the sill.”
“Some one has been playing a joke on you,” said Mr. Wittaker. “You wait, and you’ll see. You won’t be offended if I ask you a question?”
“My wife knows no more about it than I do,” said Mr. Griscom hotly.
“Now, now,” said Mr. Wittaker soothingly. “I didn’t mean that. What are your own spoons, solid or plated?” ”

“ She never told him how she arranged the matter at home, how she found it possible always to keep the appointments (to meet him out of the house) that she so boldly made, in what degree she dissimulated to her parents, and how much, in regard to their continued acquaintance, the old people suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs. Gressie had forbidden him the house, it was not, apparently, because they wished her to walk with him in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side under the blossoming lilacs in Stuyvesant Square. He didn't believe that she told lies in Twelfth Street ”

“ Whether the superiority of the new men was such as to make it advisable to supersede the old is another question, on which we would not attempt to pronounce an opinion, either one way or other. One thing, however, we may believe on the evidence of James Gresham, whose letters frequently give us very interesting political intelligence: the changes created dissatisfaction in some of the queen’s own friends, particularly in the Duke of Buckingham, who was half-brother to two of the discharged functionaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury and 173 Viscount Bourchier. ”

“ She only had one child, a girl. That young man scarcely spoke of the girl. Lady Griswold alluded to her rarely. When Mr Ferguson heard that Sir Matthew had divided his vast possessions equally between his wife and his daughter, and that the widow was free to do with her portion exactly what she pleased, his heart actually throbbed a little faster in his breast. Here was the wealth he needed to make his standing sure. It was then he dropped a more decisive hint than any other of the hints which he had dropped, the hint which had induced Lady Griswold to come home. ”

“ He's upstairs in the ward. Colonel Gresham took me to catch the Doctor."
And Polly related the story of the chase.
"Collins! Why, it was Jack Collins that Eva Gresham married— the Colonel's niece."
"Yes; David has told me that Colonel Gresham is his mother's uncle," Polly said simply.
"Well, well! So he went after the Doctor for his grand-nephew— and did n't know it till it was all over with! What strange things happen in this world! A pretty good joke on David Gresham!" And the little sad lady actually smiled. Then she sighed. "It is too bad! If they'd only make up! But they never will. ”

“ Lady Griswold told herself, when her visitor had gone. "She only hopes that it will all end well with me. As though it could end any other way but well! Foolish Marian! These women of the world have not, in their keeping, all the wisdom. Their besetting weakness is that they are so apt to measure other people's corn with their own bushels."
There was a photograph frame, fastened with a clasp, on the table at which she was standing. She unclasped it. It contained the usual photograph of Mr Ferguson, the very latest.
"Ronald, she does not know you, she says that you are hard. My Ronald!" ”

“ She looked at Hexham. The light of battle still glinted in his eyes. She looked at me, and beheld me, in fancy, sharing the fate of the victim of the lobby. Perhaps a dormant taste for intrigue; perhaps an appearance of gentility on my part to which she was mistaken enough to trust; more probably a natural desire to free herself as quickly as possible from a situation which her lack of mental ballast exaggerated to itself; perhaps a mingling of all three led her finally to lean forward and say:
"Peter, I want to introduce you to Mr.——"
"Shimmelpinneck," I murmured. ”

“ Horner’s money—or my lady’s money, or Harry Gregson’s money, call it which you will—is invested in his name, all right and tight; and they do talk of his being captain of his school, or Grecian, or something, and going to college, after all! Harry Gregson the poacher’s son! Well! to be sure, we are living in strange times!
‘But I have not done with the marriages yet. Captain James’s is all very well, but no one cares for it now, we are so full of Mr. Gray’s. Yes, indeed, Mr. Gray is going to be married, and to nobody else but my little Bessy! ”