SCENE I. MILLER—MRS. MILLER. MILLER (walking quickly up and down the room). Once for all! The affair is becoming serious. My daughter and the baron will soon be the town-talk—my house lose its character—the president will get wind of it, and—the short and long of the matter is, I'll show the younker the door. MRS MILLER. You did not entice him to your house—did not thrust your daughter upon him! MILLER. Didn't... more...

CHAPTER I HONEST JOHN More than thirty years ago two atoms of the eternal Energy sped forth from the heart of it which we call God, and incarnated themselves in the human shapes that were destined to hold them for a while, as vases hold perfumes, or goblets wine, or as sparks of everlasting radium inhabit the bowels of the rock. Perhaps these two atoms, or essences, or monads indestructible, did but repeat an adventure, or many, many... more...

I February, 1918. I am sick of my life—The war has robbed it of all that a young man can find of joy. I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in this world. So be it—I must be a philosopher. Mercifully I have no near relations—Mercifully I am still very rich,... more...

CHAPTER I About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at... more...

CHAPTER I A NIGHT journey is essentially a thing of possibilities. To those who count it as mere transit, mere linking of experiences, it is, of course, a commonplace; but to the imaginative, who by gift divine see a picture in every cloud, a story behind every shadow, it suggests romance—romance in the very making. Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as it thundered over the sleeping plains of Germany and France... more...

Chapter One. It was mid-January, and at home in England the ground was white with snow, but the sun shone down with brazen glare on the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, along which a P and O steamer was gliding on its homeward way. An awning was hoisted over the deck, but not a breath of wind fluttered its borders, and the passengers lay back in their deck-chairs too limp and idle to do more than flick over the pages of the books which they... more...

INTRODUCTION Anthony Trollope was an established novelist of great renown when Nina Balatka was published in 1866, twenty years after his first novel. Except for La Vendée, his third novel, set in France during the Revolution, all his previous works were set in England or Ireland and dealt with the upper levels of society: the nobility and the landed gentry (wealthy or impoverished), and a few well-to-do merchants — people several... more...

CHAPTER 1 No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard—and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good... more...

One day at Arle—a tiny scattered fishing hamlet on the northwestern English coast—there stood at the door of one of the cottages near the shore a woman leaning against the lintel-post and looking out: a woman who would have been apt to attract a stranger's eye, too—a woman young and handsome. This was what a first glance would have taken in; a second would have been apt to teach more and leave a less pleasant impression. She was... more...

CHAPTER I The House in Cradle Bay On an afternoon in the first week of November, 1918, under a sky bank full of murky cloud and an air freighted with a chill which threatened untimely snow, a man came rowing up along the western side of Squitty Island and turned into Cradle Bay, which lies under the lee of Point Old. He was a young man, almost boyish-looking. He had on a pair of fine tan shoes, brown overalls, a new gray mackinaw coat buttoned... more...