Fiction Books

WHO WAS SHE? Come, now, there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your eyes squarely I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend who remembered it; if confession were not good... more...

CHAPTER I. THE MAN FROM AMERICA. It was the sort of window which was common in Paris about the end of the seventeenth century. It was high, mullioned, with a broad transom across the centre, and above the middle of the transom a tiny coat of arms—three caltrops gules upon a field argent—let into the diamond-paned glass. Outside there projected a stout iron rod, from which hung a gilded miniature of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BRADYS AS CUSTOM HOUSE DETECTIVES. The Collector of the Port of New York sat in his office in the Custom House with a look of annoyance upon his face. Several of his chief inspectors were standing about the room with the most uneasy expressions, for they were being censured unmercifully. "I tell you, gentlemen," the Collector was saying, angrily, "I am very much disgusted... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Go on, Astro," shouted the young Space Cadet. "Boot that screwy ball with everything you've got!" The three cadets of the Polaris unit raced down the Academy field toward the mercuryball, a plastic sphere with a vial of mercury inside. At the opposite end of the field, three members of the Arcturus unit ran headlong in a desperate effort to reach the ball first. Astro,... more...

"Prut!" said Annot, her sabots clattering loudly on the brick floor as she moved more rapidly in her wrath. "Prut! Madame Giraud, indeed! There was a time, and it was but two years ago, that she was but plain Mere Giraud, and no better than the rest of us; and it seems to me, neighbors, that it is not well to show pride because one has the luck to be favored by fortune. Where, forsooth,... more...

INTRODUCTION. This volume has been compiled chiefly for the benefit of opium-eaters. Its subject is one indeed which might be made alike attractive to medical men who have a fancy for books that are professional only in an accidental way; to general readers who would like to see gathered into a single volume the scattered records of the consequences attendant upon the indulgence of a pernicious habit;... more...

POEMS. 'My bosom is chill'd with the cold, My limbs their lost vigour deplore! Alas! to the lonely and old, Hope warbles her promise no more! 'Worn out with the length of my way, I must rest me awhile on the beach, To feel the salt dash of the spray, If haply so far it may reach. 'As the white-foaming billows arise, I reflect on the days that are past, When the pride of my strength... more...

Within a day's journey of Kennedy Square lay another wide breathing-space, its winding paths worn smooth by countless hurrying feet. Over its flat monotony straggled a line of gnarled willows, marking the wanderings of some guileless brook long since swallowed up and lost in the mazes of the great city like many another young life fresh from green fields and sunny hill-sides. This desert of weeds... more...

CHAPTER I.     "And gave her words, where oily Flatt'ry lays    The pleasing colours of the art of praise."—PARNELL. NOTE FROM MRS. BEAUMONT TO MISS WALSINGHAM. "I am more grieved than I can express, my dearest Miss Walsingham, by a cruel contre-temps, which must prevent my indulging myself in the long-promised and long-expected pleasure of being at your fête de famille on... more...

A DIFFICULT QUESTION Philip went to bed with that kind of humble penitent gratitude in his heart, which we sometimes feel after a sudden revulsion of feeling from despondency to hope. The night before it seemed as if all events were so arranged as to thwart him in his dearest wishes; he felt now as if his discontent and repining, not twenty-four hours before, had been almost impious, so great was the... more...