Once in a while there come to me out of the long ago the fragments of a story I have not thought of for years—one that has been hidden in the dim lumber-room of my brain where I store my by-gone memories. These fragments thrust themselves out of the past as do the cuffs of an old-fashioned coat, the flutings of a flounce, or the lacings of a bodice from out a quickly opened bureau drawer. Only when you follow the cuff along the sleeve to... more...

I She sat at the base of the big tree—her little sunbonnet pushed back, her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The mountains ran in limitless... more...

CHAPTER I CHANGING IT FOR VEE Say, what's next to knowin' when you're well off? Why, thinkin' you are. Which is a little nugget of wisdom I panned out durin' a chat I had not long ago with Mr. Quinn, that I used to work under when I was on the door of the Sunday sheet, three or four years back. "Hail, Torchy!" says he, as we meets accidental on Broadway. "Still carrying the burning bush under your hat, aren't you?" I grins good-natured at... more...

CHAPTER I. ~ IN WHICH WE HOLD COUNSEL. It was a nondescript sort of a room, taking it altogether. A big, sunny room, whose once handsome papering and corniceing had grown dingy, and whose rich carpeting had lost its color and pile in places, and yet asserted its superiority to its surroundings with an air of lost grandeur in every shabby medallion. There were pictures in abundance on the walls, and more than one of them were gems in their way,... more...

A SYLLABUS Having once, for a few months, had a literary column in a newspaper, I have come to admire those authors who place at the beginning of their books a "word" in which the whole thing is given away. The time that those words saved me in writing my reviews—time which otherwise would have been lost in reading the books—enabled me to write this book; a consummation which may have, in its heart, a significant kernel, and which... more...

PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY. A heavy curtain of yellow fog rolled and drifted over the waste of beach, and rolled and drifted over the sea, and beneath the curtain the tide was coming in at Downport, and two pair of eyes were watching it. Both pair of eyes watched it from the same place, namely, from the shabby sitting-room of the shabby residence of David North, Esq., lawyer, and both watched it without any motive, it seemed, unless that the dull... more...

The "owner of the copyright" guarantees that "The Young Visiters" is the unaided effort in fiction of an authoress of nine years. "Effort," however, is an absurd word to use, as you may see by studying the triumphant countenance of the child herself, which is here reproduced as frontispiece to her sublime work. This is no portrait of a writer who had to burn the oil at midnight (indeed there is documentary evidence that she was hauled off to bed... more...

MARTHA   In the long run all love is paid by love,    Tho' undervalued by the hosts of earth.  The great eternal government above    Keeps strict account, and will redeem its worth.  Give thy love freely; do not count the cost;    So beautiful a thing was never lost          In the long run.... more...

I. IN A GARDEN "I wonder what makes Nick so late?" Carmen Gaylor thought, hovering in the doorway between the dim, cool hall and the huge veranda that was like an out-of-doors drawing-room. Though she spoke English well—almost as well as if she had not been born in Spain and made her greatest successes in the City of Mexico—Carmen thought in Spanish, for her heart was Spanish, and her beauty too. She was always handsome, but she... more...

CHAPTER I THE thing that I know least about is my beginning. For it is possible to introduce Ethel Rawdon in so many picturesque ways that the choice is embarrassing, and forces me to the conclusion that the actual circumstances, though commonplace, may be the most suitable. Certainly the events that shape our lives are seldom ushered in with pomp or ceremony; they steal upon us unannounced, and begin their work without giving any premonition of... more...