Fiction Books

Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at one time new, have never at any time been strictly true. The character of Washington, emerging splendid from the dust and tumult of those great conflicts in which he played the leading part, has... more...

FIRST LOVEEmilia Pardo-BazanHow old was I then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen, for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won't venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations. If I do not remember well when, I can at least say exactly how my first love revealed itself. I was... more...

CHAPTER I. A GENTLEMAN THINKS HE CAN COMMIT A CRIME AND ESCAPE DETECTION. "Jack Barnes never gets left, you bet." "That was a close call, though," replied the Pullman porter who had given Mr. Barnes a helping hand, in his desperate effort to board the midnight express as it rolled out of Boston. "I wouldn't advise you to jump on moving trains often." "Thank you for your... more...

THE WITCH IT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying in his huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not asleep, though it was his habit to go to sleep at the same time as the hens. His coarse red hair peeped from under one end of the greasy patchwork quilt, made up of coloured rags, while his big unwashed feet stuck out from the other. He was listening. His hut adjoined... more...

Chapter I FOR reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington. She was in excellent health, but she said that the climate would do her good. In New York she had troops of friends, but she suddenly became eager to see again the very small number of those who lived on the Potomac. It was only to her closest intimates that she honestly... more...

I—GILLETTE On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not venture into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first time, easy of access though she may be;... more...

CHAPTER I APPLEBORO "Now there was my cousin Eliza," Miss Sally Ruth Dexter once said to me, "who was forced to make her home for thirty years in Vienna! She married an attaché of the Austrian legation, you know; met him while she was visiting in Washington, and she was such a pretty girl and he was such a charming man that they fell in love with each other and got married. Afterward his... more...

THE LIFE OF BROWNING Robert Browning, the poet, was the third of that name. The first Robert Browning, a man of energy and ability, held an important post in the Bank of England. His wife, Margaret Tittle, was a Creole from the West Indies, and at the time of her marriage her property was still in the estates owned by her father near St. Kitts. When their son, the second Robert, was seven years of age,... more...

CHAPTER I IN RUDE BORDER-LAND Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation calls the falling apple, came from afar and near—mainly from afar—the malcontent, the... more...

A shot from the alarm-gun! Timidly does the citizen examine the dark corners of his house to discover whether any strange man be hid there. The peasant in the field stops his horses to consider whether he would wish to meet with any fugitive, and earn capture-money, or whether he should save some desperate man, in spite of the severe punishment with which every one was threatened who enabled a deserter... more...