"It's the girl who interest me." Those fateful words spoken by the great conductor Oscar Warrender changed Caroline's life. She'd never considered herself a potential opera singer, but with Warrender's encouragement and an unknown benefactor who'd offered to pay for her training, she knew she c...
This was one of Mary Burchell's first efforts that she wrote in 1938. Her work certainly improved over the years as she progressed with her writing. I recognize things have changed since 1938, but I just could not relate to the hero or heroine and I found the story to be so far fetched that I...
Can a man fall in love with a painting? The girl in the blue dress was in a portrait that Franklin Lowell had owned and admired for years.And when, at last, he met the original model for the picture, it seemed to be too late. Not only was she in love with the artist who had painted her, but Frank...
Madeline felt that she was on the brink of a completely new life when she left England to do a year’s nursing in a great Montreal hospital.But she found that, after all, she would not be totally among strangers, for she had already met on board ship —though he was said to be so unapproachable — D...
When Erica Murril married her boss she was under no illusions as to the nature ofthe marriage. She knew that for Oliver Leyne it was merely one of convenience,that he would never have considered her had he not lost the woman he really loved. All the same, Erica did love him, and she couldn't help...
I’m sorry—I shan’t be many minutes more. I’m afraid—” she actually achieved a slight, deprecating laugh—“Nigel interrupted me with a certain amount of—of cousinly enthusiasm.” If he had looked silly or started stammering excuses she would never have forgiven him. But he did neither of these. He l...
People don’t die of even a bad pain.” Immediately Leonie was the calm, competent, infinitely comforting nurse, and Claire her patient. Personal embarrassment between them no longer existed.“Come, let me help you back to bed”—Leonie’s arm was round the other girl, strong and reassuring—”and I’ll g...
For the third time that morning, Clare Collamore forced a pleasant smile to her now pale lips and tried to look as though her enquiry were a perfectly normal one. “He—”“What’s the name, please?” The bright, indifferent little girl at the enquiry desk of Morgan & Petersfield, Publicity Agents,...
She lay there for a few moments watching the sunlight pick out the subdued colors of her bedroom carpet. Then the strange events of the previous evening rushed back into her full consciousness.Angus would be telephoning sometime soon, to discuss the day’s plans, and undoubtedly she would be spend...
Freda stared at him, hope and incredulity alternating in her face. “How can you be so certain? How do you know you’re going to marry Celia eventually?”“I’ve known it for the last two years,” he replied coolly. “It will take more than Laurence Clumber to put me off.”“Do you mean—” Freda was impres...
If you’ll go into the living room. I’ll find out if she is seeing anyone.”She saw a smile flash into his dark, mocking eyes, as though in amused appreciation of the barrier she was erecting. But he said bluntly, “Who are you? I thought I knew everyone in Felicity’s entourage.”“I look after Miss M...
There was a slight nervous jerkiness about her companion's driving, but when Felicity glanced at Julia Morton she could detect no nervousness in her expression. Only a half smiling determination which hardened the line of her mouth. 'Take time for your reply,' Felicity told herself. 'Take time.' ...
Where is the photograph?”For a few moments everyone searched for it, with varying degrees of interest and excitement. Then David reached across and picked it up from a side table where Anya had left it earlier in the evening.“Here it is,” he said, and handed it over to Martin.It seemed there was ...
Then Cecile said quietly, “You can’t do such a thing, you know. You couldn’t be so absolutely horrible. It would injure me and my mother, it’s true. But think what it would do to you."Felicity looked oddly shaken for a moment. But then she hardened her mouth—and perhaps her heart.“I wouldn’t want...
Fasten Safety Belts!” ordered the electric sign at the front of the aeroplane cabin. And Leslie, occupied though she was with her own private problem, could not suppress an instinctive thrill of excitement at this indication that her first flight was about to begin.“All right?” Reid, in the seat ...
And, if it was all very recent, at least it served to provide some background—some feeling that she was not a completely new arrival.They were fortunate enough to find space available on one of the several flights to Melbourne. And late in the afternoon Juliet found herself back at the airport th...
And as she instinctively dropped her glance before the barrage of interested stares, her bewilderment and protest went unnoticed and she merely looked like the slightly overcome heroine of the occasion.“Katherine ... Renner?” Paul’s father repeated the unfamiliar name on a note of stupefaction qu...
I haven’t said—”“No, darling. You haven’t said a thing,” Mrs. Morley assured her. “You’ve been a model of tactful reticence, and shifted off the subject of Frances every time I have come near it. Frances, too, hasn’t said a word. But her silences are much more informative. I might say she has bee...
I said ‘marry’.” He seemed unmoved—even faintly amused—by the violence of her reaction.“But—why? It’s a preposterous suggestion. I’m engaged to Richard, and you and I—we don’t even like each other.”“Oh, pardon me, I’ve never said I don’t like you.”“Not in so many words, perhaps. But it’s obvious ...
She bent down to greet him through the open window. “At least—” Suddenly she remembered that he might have come in a mood of grim inquiry rather than friendly reconciliation, and her smile faded anxiously—”at least, I hope it is.”“Why shouldn’t it be?” He smiled at her in the old way, as he opene...