Fiction Books

CHAPTER I AN UNEXPECTED GUEST When I look back on the beginning of my adventures, I can set the very day and hour when the tranquil course of my early life came to an end, when the comfortable commonplaces of my previous existence altered, when the placid current of my former life broke suddenly and without warning into the tumultuous rapids which hurried me from surprise to surprise and from peril to... more...

CHAPTER I.   THE privilege that statesmen ever claim,  Who private interest never yet pursued,  But still pretended 'twas for others' good.  . . . . . .  From hence on every humorous wind that veered  With shifted sails a several course you steered.                 Absalom and Achitophel, Part ii. LORD VARGRAVE had for more than a fortnight remained at the inn at... more...

INTRODUCTION. After many unsuccessful experiments, made some years ago, to retrieve a declining fortune, I was lucky enough at last to marry the mistress of a boarding-school: her circumstances were not, indeed, at the time of our marriage, very considerable. But as I was neither unacquainted with the world, nor the more useful sciences, by a peculiar attention to the tempers of the boys, and the... more...

INTRODUCTION. In placing this booklet before the great fraternity of American trappers, the author does not propose to exercise any pedagogical influence upon the truly professional trapper, who, seasoned in the hard school of experience, knows the animals he is seeking, like a mother knows her child. It is his wish, however, to assist and guide the amateur to a greater success. Practically all... more...

CHAPTER I. Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the placeOf Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?—LAMB. IT was towards the evening of a day in early April that two ladies were seated by the open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The lawn before them was gay with evergreens, relieved by the first few flowers and fresh turf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an opening amongst... more...

CHAPTER I OUR HOUSE-BOAT AT HENLEYIt speaks volumes for an amiability I have always claimed for myself through sundry fierce disputes on the subject with my sister, that, even after two years of travel in Europe with her and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, they should still wish for my company for a journey across France and Germany to Russia. Bee says it speaks volumes for the tempers of the Jimmies, but then... more...

Perhaps this story does not belong with my other tales of the Special Patrol Service. And yet, there is, or should be, a report somewhere in the musty archives of the Service, covering the incident. Not accurately, and not in detail. Among a great mass of old records which I was browsing through the other day, I happened across that report; it occupied exactly three lines in the log-book of the Ertak:... more...

CHAPTER I.   Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place  Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?—LAMB. IT was towards the evening of a day in early April that two ladies were seated by the open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The lawn before them was gay with evergreens, relieved by the first few flowers and fresh turf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an opening... more...

CHAPTER I.   ABROAD uneasy, nor content at home.    . . . . . .  And Wisdom shows the ill without the cure. HAMMOND: Elegies. TWO or three days after the interview between Lord Vargrave and Maltravers, the solitude of Burleigh was relieved by the arrival of Mr. Cleveland. The good old gentleman, when free from attacks of the gout, which were now somewhat more frequent than formerly, was the... more...

CHAPTER I.   . . . SHE is young, wise, fair,  In these to Nature she's immediate heir.  . . . . . .  . . . Honours best thrive  When rather from our acts we them derive  Than our foregoers!—All's Well that Ends Well. LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND. EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,—I see her daily! How true it is that we cannot... more...