CONTENTS

CHAPTER

  1. [Which Introduces Them]
  2. [The Coming of the Children]
  3. [The Education of Mr. Wycherly]
  4. [The Secretiveness of Mause]
  5. [Robina]
  6. [The Awakening of Mr. Wycherly]
  7. [Elsa Drives the Nail Home]
  8. [Edmund Rechristens Mr. Wycherly]
  9. [Cupid Abroad]
  10. [The Sabbath]
  11. [Loaves and Fishes]
  12. [The Village]
  13. [A Meeting]
  14. [A Parting]
  15. [The Bethune Temperament]
  16. [The Coming of the Colonel]
  17. [Mr. Wycherly Goes Into Society]
  18. [Montagu and His Aunt]
  19. [The Fond Adventure]
  20. [A Question of Theology]
  21. [In which Mr. Wycherly Hangs Up His College Arms]
  22. [Vale]

"Love is an excellent thing, a great good indeed, which alone maketh light all that is burthensome and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carrieth a burthen without being burthened and maketh all that which is bitter sweet and savoury."

MISS ESPERANCE AND
MR. WYCHERLY

CHAPTER I

WHICH INTRODUCES THEM

And the kingdom of heaven is of the child-like, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure.—R.L.S.

Just as a Royal Princess is known only by her Christian name, so "Miss Esperance" was known to her many friends by hers. It would have seemed an impertinence to add anything more: there was only one Miss Esperance, and even quite commonplace people, deficient in imagination and generally prosaic in their estimate of their acquaintance, acknowledged, perhaps unconsciously, that in Miss Esperance was to be found in marked degree "that hardy and high serenity," distinguishing quality of the truly great.

A little, old lady, her abundant white hair demurely parted under the species of white muslin cap known in the North country as a "mutch," with beautiful, kind eyes, and a fresh pink-and-white complexion, having a slim, long-waisted figure, always attired in garments something of a cross between those of a Quakeress and a Sister-of-Mercy; a little, old lady, who walked delicately and talked deliberately the English of Mr. Addison; who lived in a small, square house set in a big, homely garden, on an incredibly small income; and out of that income helped innumerable people poorer than herself, to say nothing of much greater responsibilities undertaken at an age when most of us look for rest and a quiet life.