CHAPTER I. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. In the evening we met in Connie's room, as usual, to have our talk. And this is what came out of it. The window was open. The sun was in the west. We sat a little aside out of the course of his radiance, and let him look full into the room. Only Wynnie sat back in a dark corner, as if she would get out of his way. Below him the sea lay bluer than you could... more...

CHAPTER IWHY THE PRINCESS HAS A STORY ABOUT HERTHERE was once a little princess who—"But, Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?" "Because every little girl is a princess." "You will make them vain if you tell them that." "Not if they understand what I mean." "Then what do you mean?" "What do you mean by a princess?" "The daughter... more...

A HIDDEN LIFE. Proudly the youth, by manhood sudden crowned,Went walking by his horses to the plough,For the first time that morn. No soldier gayFeels at his side the throb of the gold hilt(Knowing the blue blade hides within its sheath,As lightning in the cloud) with more delight,When first he belts it on, than he that dayHeard still the clank of the plough-chains againstThe horses' harnessed... more...

CHAPTER I AT A HIGH SCHOOL. When Mercy was able to go down to the drawing-room, she found the evenings pass as never evenings passed before; and during the day, although her mother and Christina came often to see her, she had time and quiet for thinking. And think she must; for she found herself in a region of human life so different from any she had hitherto entered, that in no other circumstances... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HAY-LOFT I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there. He lived in a... more...

NEWBURY. Early the next morning, after Richard had left the cottage for Raglan castle, mistress Rees was awaked by the sound of a heavy blow against her door. When with difficulty she had opened it, Richard or his dead body, she knew not which, fell across her threshold. Like poor Marquis, he had come to her for help and healing. When he got out of the quarry, he made for the highroad, but missing the... more...

CHAPTER I A RUNAWAY RACE Upon neighbouring stones, earth-fast, like two islands of an archipelago, in an ocean of heather, sat a boy and a girl, the girl knitting, or, as she would have called it, weaving a stocking, and the boy, his eyes fixed on her face, talking with an animation that amounted almost to excitement. He had great fluency, and could have talked just as fast in good English as in the... more...

CHAPTER I. LANDLORD'S DAUGHTER AND TENANT'S SON. In a kitchen of moderate size, flagged with slate, humble in its appointments, yet looking scarcely that of a farmhouse—for there were utensils about it indicating necessities more artificial than usually grow upon a farm—with the corner of a white deal table between them, sat two young people evidently different in rank, and meeting upon... more...

I. INTRODUCTION. I have been requested to write some papers on our Lord's miracles. I venture the attempt in the belief that, seeing they are one of the modes in which his unseen life found expression, we are bound through them to arrive at some knowledge of that life. For he has come, The Word of God, that we may know God: every word of his then, as needful to the knowing of himself, is needful... more...

CHAPTER I. SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, and persistent efforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of that to which the poems I am about to present bear good witness—the true life of the people, growing quietly, slowly,... more...